


Whumptober at the DPD 2020

by Rhinozilla



Series: Detroit 07 [29]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Detroit Police Department (Detroit: Become Human), Father-Son Relationship, Hank Anderson & Connor Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Poor Connor, Swearing, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Whump, Whumptober, will add tags as we go along
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 66,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26741338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhinozilla/pseuds/Rhinozilla
Summary: 31 prompts of whump involving the squad of the DPD’s 7th Precinct.
Series: Detroit 07 [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1473497
Comments: 440
Kudos: 432





	1. Crying

**Author's Note:**

> From this challenge on tumblr: https://whumptober2020.tumblr.com/post/628055505485561856/whumptober-2020-updated. Unlike last year, I had plenty of notice to plan ahead on this thing, so I’m starting out strong on Day One! My goal is to update daily throughout the month, but even if I fail at that, I WILL be completing all 31 days of whump by the end of the month!
> 
> A few short notes before we dive in. 
> 
> These prompts will not necessarily be posted in the same order as the challenge list.
> 
> This fic is going to be heavily referencing my Detroit 07 series as far as spoilers for where the story is at this point in time, OCs, and character dynamics. Last year I tried to make my Whumptober fic enjoyable without the context of Detroit 07, but this time…we’ve got a whole additional year of plot and lore that have happened, so I am electing to just selfishly play in my own sandbox on this one. Join me.
> 
> Also this year, I am using this fic as a dumping ground for some of my whumpy WIPs from the past. For whatever reason, they never came fruition in a timely manner, and rather than abandon them to the dusty corners of my hard drive, I’m going to mold them into something post-able and let them live here. 
> 
> And lastly, because I am SO backlogged on reader-submitted prompts over on Camaraderie, I will be poaching a few of the potentially whumpier prompts from there to fill here. Sort of a two-birds-one-stone situation. I will not be taking any new prompts until I’ve chipped away at that mountain a bit.
> 
> None of the other chapters will be this long, but this was a particularly dusty old WIP that felt like a strong way to kick this thing off. 
> 
> Whew. All right. Enough of my babbling. On to the whump. Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor shows up at Person's apartment late one night, visibly upset and lost. Person does her best to help him get a handle on his new and overwhelming emotions.

It was ten o’clock at night, and her door buzzer was going off. Person almost didn’t hear it over the television, and she turned around on the couch and stared at the console next to her apartment door. Sure enough the little light was on, signaling someone was wanting up.

What the entire Hell?

With a frown, Person rolled off the couch, turning off the television and lumbering over to the door.

If her neighbor’s boyfriend was drunk and buzzing the wrong door again, so help her…

Instead, she turned on the small screen display on the buzzer, showing who was standing outside the building, and it took a second for her to realize it was Connor.

He was standing with his head bowed, one finger holding the buzzer down, with a heavy dusting of snow on his head and shoulders.

What the whole, entire Hell?

Person hit the response button. “Connor, what are you doing?”

On the monitor, Connor didn’t lift his head, and his reply was low. “I don’t…know. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Connor, what’s wrong? Did something—Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She hit the button to unlock the front door. “Get up here.”

Connor stepped off screen into the building, and Person turned off the buzzer. She glanced around her apartment and then down at herself. Her small apartment was fairly bare and slightly cluttered, since she’d designated Sunday as cleaning day and it was just Saturday night. Cleaning day included laundry day, so she was down to just one paint-stained pair of black yoga pants and a faded old DPD t-shirt. Whatever, it was just Connor…

On cue, there were two meek knocks on the door. She glanced into the peephole, verified it was him, and unlocked the door. She pulled it wide open and put her hands on her hips, ready to give him the what-for about this whole “swinging by unannounced at ten at night” bullshit, but as soon as she saw his face, that rant went out the window.

Connor looked pitiful. The first heavy snow of the winter had left a generous pile on his head and shoulders, and his clothes were dark where it had melted and soaked through. He looked pale, his artificial skin thinning from the cold and showing some of the white plastic underneath. She didn’t see any thirium or visible damage, but his LED was red.

“Jesus.” When he didn’t make a motion to come inside, she reached out and grabbed his wrist, tugging him into her apartment. “You’re dripping in the hallway. Come in here.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, head still tilted down and eyes aimed at the floor. “It got…hard to think.”

“Probably because your brain is frozen,” she snapped, closing the door and turning around to face him. “Care to tell me why the actual fuck—“

She paused when she saw him flinch at her tone, and it made her pull up short.

“Connor?” she tried again, softening her voice.

That only seemed to be worse, as his shoulders crept up a bit, and tension tightened his frame.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“Hey, hey, hey.” She moved to stand directly in front of him, forcing herself into his line of sight when he didn’t voluntarily look at her. “Whatever it is, it’ll be okay…Are you hurt?”

He still didn’t look at her, opting to close his eyes as he shook his head.

“Okay.” She fidgeted her hands in front of her. “Is someone else hurt?”

Another shake of the head. She eyed all the half melted snow lying on him.

“How long have you been outside in the snow?”

A sheepish shrug.

“Do you want me to call Hank?”

“No!” Connor finally looked up, eyes wide, and there was a panicked edge to his expression that turned Person’s stomach. He shrunk a bit from his own outburst, averting his gaze again. “No, that’s not…Please don’t.”

“Okay, I won’t,” she assured gently. “How can I help?”

He slowly wrapped his arms around his chest, visibly repressing a shiver as he stared at the floor between them.

“Just…went for a walk to…cool off…” he murmured. “Storm is messing with my internal location system. I didn’t get…lost, but it got…hard to…think straight. Your apartment was closest to where I was…so I…” He abruptly stopped, staring at the puddle of melted snow that was dripping onto her floor. He looked up, lowering his shoulders and dropping his arms. “I’m intruding.”

More panic and something more painful flashed over his face.

“I’m…Shit, I’m sorry, Lisa…I shouldn’t have—It’s late and—This is so inappropriate—I’m so sorry—I’m imposing and—and—“

“Connor, you’re hyperventilating.” She held up her hands, just in case he tried to bolt for the door…or if he just collapsed…she couldn’t decide which was more likely at the moment. “You’re not imposing, but you are scaring me a little. Here, sit down before you fall over.”

“I’m…wet…” He looked guiltily at the dry recliner she was gesturing to.

“We can take care of that. Connor…please sit down,” she coaxed. “Or, wait, first let me get some towels and dry clothes. I don’t want to find out if androids can get pneumonia.”

He stared at her for a moment, and then he mechanically began to peel off his soaked jacket. Person took that as a small victory and a sign that he wasn’t going to try to leave, and she hurried into the bathroom. She grabbed an armful of towels from the linen closet and returned to the living room, dumping them in the recliner for him to use. She went into her bedroom long enough to dig out whatever she had left that was clean and might fit him. Fuck if that didn’t end up being just a pair of fleecy, red pajama pants with llamas on them and another old DPD t-shirt that was so old and stretched out that it looked like it would unravel if handled too harshly…but damn if that didn’t make it the softest thing she owned.

Whatever mental state Connor was in, his modesty setting wasn’t active, and he mutely took the offered clothes and began to just strip down in her living room, right then and there. Person picked up the wet clothes and took them into the bathroom. She busied herself with hanging them over the shower rod for a full few minutes, giving him enough time to get dressed. When she finally returned to the living room, he was standing where he’d left him, except now instead of looking sad and soaking wet, he just looked sad and very cozy.

“Sorry about the pants,” she spoke, just to break this weird silence. “They were a gift from somebody who thinks I like fleece and llamas, apparently.”

She snorted, but he gave no reaction. She sighed and stepped up closer, gesturing to the couch.

“Okay, you got a dry butt now. Want to sit?”

Connor fidgeted and only moved when she started to sit on the couch too. They both sat on the old piece of furniture: Person flopping into her familiar spot, Connor sinking stiffly down beside her. His LED was still red, and he still looked like he was trying not to shiver. He didn’t speak first, so Person grabbed the folded up green blanket on the back of the couch, shaking it loose and then dropping it around the back of his neck.

“Bundle up, get comfy, stay a while,” she prompted, drawing her legs up and turning so that she was facing him a little more. “Are we going to keep playing the guessing game, or are you going to tell me what happened? Should I be worried about this?”

She reached out to lightly poke his LED, but he ducked his head away so viscerally that she pulled back. She held her hands in view for him to see.

“Easy,” she said slowly.

Fuck, he looked like some kind of lost baby deer…

Trying to scramble some of the pieces together, she lowered her hands back to her lap and eyed him carefully.

“Did you and Hank…have a fight?”

Connor was staring at his own fidgeting fingers, but he gave a tiny nod.

“How did you know?“

“Connor, everybody in their right mind is at home right now out of the snow and the cold. I know for a fact that you hate snow and cold, and the only reason you wouldn’t be home right now is if things were pretty ugly there. So…” she pressed gently, “how ugly did it get? You said you needed to cool off…” She glanced at his red LED, at his generally defensive posture, and his behavior since he’d gotten here. “Connor, did Hank…hit you?”

“No!” Connor looked at her, horrified at the accusation. “No, it wasn’t anything like—No.”

“Okay.” She nodded slowly and set her hand, palm up, on the space on the couch between them, an unassuming invitation if he needed some contact. “But you did argue?”

“…Yes. It was…bad.”

“Friends argue,” she reassured. “It happens a lot. I doubt it’s something that can’t be fixed—“

“I should have let it go…” His expression pinched with stress. “But I just kept pushing…”

“About what?”

He shook his head hard, lifting his hands and covering his face.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said softly, taking the opportunity to fluff out the blanket and wrap it around his shoulders more. “You don’t have to tell me what you were arguing about, but it was pretty bad, right? That’s why you didn’t go back home?”

He lost the fight against the shiver, and a low, pained noise escaped with it.

“Not…home.”

Person blinked, not sure she’d heard him right. “What?”

“It’s not…my home.”

Oh…fuck…How bad was this fight if he was questioning that?

“You’ve been living with Hank since the revolution nearly two years ago,” she stated. “Of course it’s your home. Did Hank…kick you out?”

“No!” Connor balled his hands into fists, dropping them from his face and pushing them against his knees. His eyes stayed screwed shut, his LED burning. “Please, stop accusing him of…He didn’t do anything wrong…It was me…I should have dropped it—I should have—“

“Whoa, whoa, okay, come here.” Person telegraphed her movements as she put her arms around him.

He allowed it, and she pressed her luck, giving him a gentle tug toward her. She may as well have yanked him for how quickly he came forward, curling into a miserable ball against her. Person tried not to be stiff and awkward, but she wasn’t used to physically comforting people…or emotionally comforting them…or—fuck, she just wasn’t used to comforting people at all. She just knew that most people sought out the comfort of a hug when they were upset…and her hypothesis that Connor was among those people was right on the money.

Person wrapped her arms as far around him as she could reach, rubbing one hand up and down his back. He was shaking in earnest now, like there was something trying to rattle out of his chest, and he was breathing in deep, hard pulls.

Where his LED was now right under her jaw, in her periphery she saw it cycle yellow. He simultaneously flinched and squinted his eyes closed.

“He keeps calling me,” he muttered brokenly.

The light changed from yellow back to red as he rejected the call.

Person grimaced, bringing one hand up to the back of his head and working her fingers into his wet hair.

“He’s probably worried about you,” she suggested. “If you left to calm down and didn’t tell him anything.”

Connor made a strained noise and curled more tightly into her.

“Do you want me to call him?” She quickly explained, “Just to let him know that you’re safe, and that he needs to give you some space? That’s all, I promise.”

Connor was quiet for a long moment, and then he gave a slow nod. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she parroted more brightly.

He let up enough for her to get up off the couch and retrieve her phone from the kitchen counter. She watched him slump down in a heap along the length of the couch in her absence, and she stayed in the kitchen as she made the call.

Hank picked up in the middle of the first ring.

“Hello?!” The panic was in full force in just that one word. “Connor?!”

“Anderson, it’s Person,” she greeted calmly. “I’ve got Connor here with me.”

“Oh thank God…Fuck, is he okay?” Hank’s voice went on a rollercoaster from panic, to relief, and to the kind of annoyed tone that only came out to cover up the fear.

“Physically he’s fine,” she informed him. “But he’s pretty shaken up.”

“Where are you? I can come pick him up.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Hank,” she said carefully. “It’s not my business what’s going on between you two, but…he needs some space.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, followed by a heavy sigh.

“This is my fault,” he grunted.

“Funny, he’s insisting it’s his fault,” she said evenly.

“No! God, fuck, I’m the asshole on this one…He didn’t deserve any of that…It’s just this damn—“ he cut himself off, taking another deep breath. “He’s with you?”

“At my apartment,” she confirmed. “He’s safe, and he’s okay, and he’s staying here tonight.”

“…All right.” Hank didn’t sound happy, but he did sound resigned. “Thanks, Person. Sorry.”

Person looked at the sad lump on her couch, at the eyes watching her from beneath a burning LED. “Doesn’t sound like I’m the one you need to be apologizing to.”

“Yeah…yeah.” Hank muttered, and then only the dial tone droned at her.

She hung up the phone and set it back on the counter, returning to the living room. Connor pushed himself up as she got closer, pulling the blanket more tightly around himself until he was a big android burrito on her couch. She stepped around him and sat on the coffee table directly in front of him. She leaned forward slightly, putting her forearms across her knees.

“There, you’re off the hook tonight.” She smiled for him. She got nothing back, and she sombered. “Do you want to talk to me about it?”

“Not really.”

“That’s fine too.” She bobbed her head, sliding from the coffee table to the seat beside him on the couch. “My job right now is to make you feel better, maybe even get that little light to turn blue.”

Connor burrowed a little more deeply into the blanket, eyes downcast. “Not your job.”

“It is my job when my best friend is upset,” she countered, snapping her lips shut when that slipped out.

Too late, Connor was staring at her, momentarily distracted from his misery. His LED was a stunned yellow as he processed her accidental confession.

“I’m your…best friend?”

Dammit.

Person caved, shrugging her shoulders and trying to look casual about it. “Well, yeah…I mean, it’s cool if I’m not your best friend, let’s face it, you have better options than I do there, but…my, uh, my therapist said I should be more…vocal about that kinda…thing…with people I care about…to, uh, let them…let them know that I—“ she gestured vaguely, “care.” She swallowed and found some inner steel, looking at him more directly. “So, yes, Connor, you are my best friend. Deal with it.”

Connor continued to stare at her, but after a beat, a shaky, small smile crept across his mouth. “I’m…Thank you…I’m…honored.”

His LED actually flickered blue for one cycle before returning to a more stressed yellow.

“So…” She breathed a little easier after getting that out of the way. “How do we make you feel better? What is going on here?” She vaguely indicated his trembling shoulders. “Are you still cold? I have more blankets.”

“N-no,” he said, looking a little perplexed himself. “My internal temperature has already stabilized, and I ran another diagnostic while you were on the phone. Everything came back negative, aside from my stress levels, but even that is slowly coming down.”

“Okay, that’s good,” she said. “Maybe all that stress is trying to get out somehow. You said you were taking a walk to calm down. Did the physical exertion help?”

“Unfortunately no. The cold…you know…”

“Yeah,” she conceded. “I’ve never seen an android shake when they get overwhelmed. You sound like you’re about to rattle apart.”

“I don’t know how to make it stop…I want it to stop,” he said, looking distressed at the involuntary tremors. “What are some human methods of dispersing stress?”

Person tilted her head, not used to him asking questions that he could simply search his database for the answers to.

“I find a good cry helps.”

“Androids don’t cry.”

“I’ve seen them do it.”

“I don’t cry.”

“Bullshit.”

He looked at her sharply, and she let the accusation hang in the air. She gave a small, teasing smile.

“Might be worth a try anyway,” she said with a shrug. “For humans, crying helps to correct a chemical imbalance, right? We just get so many feelings that we can’t contain it all, so we cry to get them out. Hence, tears,” she explained. “What’s to say that wouldn’t translate somehow to androids?”

“Now who’s full of bullshit?” he muttered.

“Both of us, probably.” She shrugged, then, “I told you, you’re safe here. Cry or don’t. Scream or don’t. Break something if you want…I’m not super fond of that lamp if you want to—“

“I’m not going to break your lamp…and I don’t think screaming would particularly help either.” He fidgeted, started to shrug, gave up halfway through the movement, and then slumped back in his seat. “I have…kept that facet of the emotional expression update turned off…I don’t know…if I activate it…if I actually will find crying to be a suitable stress release.”

“…Only one way to find out,” she coaxed. “There used to be a weird stigma about crying, but it’s really a good thing. You get all that junk out, you have an epic nap afterward, and most times, you feel much better afterward. That’s been my experience.”

“Well…” He tilted his head thoughtfully, glancing at her and then back at his hands. “If I can’t trust my best friend’s experience, whose can I?”

Person gave a started laugh, trying to dislodge the sudden swell of emotion clogging her chest. “Oh goddammit, you’re trying to sabotage me and make me cry too, huh?” She snickered and then looked at him more sincerely. “Thanks, Connor. I’ll…try to stay worthy of that title.”

He gave another shaky smile and a small nod. She sat patiently as his LED cycled yellow while he activated the dormant module of his emotional expression program. The red slammed back hard and fast, and the change was immediate.

Connor groaned and pressed his hands over his closed eyes, buckling forward a little.

“Whoa, easy,” she soothed.

“It’s burning,” he hiccupped, rubbing at his eyes.

“The first ones’ll do that sometimes,” she reassured, putting her hand on his back. “Try to breathe normally.”

He took one deep inhale and held it for a full second. The breath shuddered out in the exhale, tapering into a hard shudder. He hiccupped again, violently, and his shoulders dropped with a short, pained sob.

“There we go.” She leaned against him slightly, keeping her arm around him if he wanted the contact. “Let it out.”

Connor dropped his hands from his eyes, and his face was twisted up with the overwhelming emotions fighting to get out now that he wasn’t holding them back. The tears were coming fast then, quickly flowing from his eyes and down his cheeks with a slight blue tint to them. They dripped off his jaw, and he ran out of air, gasping and sobbing again.

“Oh my God,” Person whispered, feeling her heart breaking for him.

He had been feeling this awful the whole time and was only NOW letting it out? Christ, no wonder he’d been shaking so badly. He actually HAD been about to rattle apart.

“Is th-this n-n-n-norm-ma-mal-l-l?” he wheezed, looking up at her fearfully.

Person rubbed her hand up and down his arm. “Yeah. This is a little intense, but I’ve had this kind of cry before. You’re okay.”

His head nodded with a jerk, and he got lost in the throes of the breakdown again, sobbing openly. He looked like he didn’t know what to do with his hands while it was happening, so they were left as half curled fists in his lap. His breathing hitched and made his whole frame quiver occasionally, and Person let him go at it for as long as he needed the outlet.

There wasn’t any of the snot that came along with human tears, and though he was bowed severely forward, she didn’t think he looked like he was going to throw up from the emotional exertion. She’d had THAT cry before too; it wasn’t something she’d wish on somebody during their first full emotional breakdown.

It went on for several, unintelligible minutes, and all she could think to do was stay by him, keeping her arms around him as he rode it out. A human would have run out of tears at some point, and after several minutes, his android body seemed to come to the same conclusion, as the fluid of the tears began to turn a more definitive blue.

Keeping one arm around him, holding him to her, she subtly tugged out her phone and ordered a bottle of thirium for drop off at her apartment. By the time the app let her know the order was en route, Connor was starting to finally plateau into quieter, strained wheezing. The whites of his eyes were tinted blue, and the artificial brown coloring of his irises had faded slightly, letting her see some of the discs and metal behind them that made up his optical units.

He looked at her, a complicated expression on his face, somewhere between fearful uncertainty and riding the high of the emotional release. It made his eyes look too wide and too innocent, and Person had to restrain herself from pulling him into the biggest, hardest, most intense hug he’d ever had.

Instead, she held up the corner of the blanket hanging off his shoulder. She offered it as a substitute for a tissue. He sheepishly took it and started mopping at his face.

“What’s the verdict?” she asked. “Any better?”

He nodded into the blanket, then lifted his face up and looked at her again. His eyes were already correcting themselves, and with the blue tears wiped away, he almost looked like he’d never cried at all. No puffy eyes or red face or any of the human mess; man, she was envious of that trick.

“I feel…steadier.” He ran his wrist across his eyes for good measure. “My head feels clearer.”

“Good!” she encouraged, giving his shoulders a squeeze with her arm. “That’s good.”

He shifted, keeping self conscious eyes on his fidgeting fingers as the full awareness of his situation seemed to finally break through.

“Stress levels are…quickly dropping back to normal parameters. I’m…Thank you.” He looked at her, and he looked so sincere that her chest tightened.

“You’re…uh…you’re welcome,” she said, slightly uncomfortable under such a genuine look.

Mercifully, the delivery drone appearing outside her window broke the moment.

“Oh.” She gestured to the window, slowly extricating herself from the couch. “I ordered thirium while you were…I mean, technically you were crying blood, so…not normal for a human, but I guess androids have fewer fluids to choose from so…anyway…”

She opened the window and took the box containing the thirium from the drone. She tapped her phone against the drone’s scanner, paying for the order and delivery. It chirped in acknowledgement and then flew off on its next assignment. She closed the window and turned back toward the living room.

“If the big android cries are anything like the big human cries, you’re about to get exhausted,” she explained, opening the box and pulling out the dark blue bottle. “So I think if you drink some of this before that hits, then just sleep it off, maybe you…will…”

She trailed off, looking at Connor.

He had slouched back in his seat against the couch. His head was tilted back, causing his mouth to hang open, and the rest of him had gone boneless. His eyes were shut, and his LED was a slowly churning yellow.

“Or…you could just drink this in the morning,” she finished aloud. “Can’t imagine you cried out that much…though you did cry a lot…”

She mumbled to herself, setting the bottle on the coffee table and stepping around to stand in front of him. She gently reached out and got her hands around his shoulders. He started just a little, barely enough to open his eyes halfway to look at her.

“How about we just…tip you over,” she encouraged, coaxing him to lie down along the length of the couch.

He went like a falling tree, and she hastily snatched up a throw pillow, wedging it under his head as he landed.

“Timber,” she announced quietly.

She straightened up and let him get comfortable on his own. He drew his legs up onto the couch and folded his arms up around his chest like some kind of bat. She snorted and went to the other closet in her living room. The green, tear-soaked blanket was not ideal for post-cry naps. She dug out her thick, fluffy purple blanket. She unfolded it, finding some comfort in the weighted fabric of it herself, and then unceremoniously draped it over the exhausted android.

Connor seemed to melt further into the couch under the new layer, and finally, at long last, his LED circled to blue and stayed that way.

Person stared at his temple for at least three cycles of calm blue before she exhaled.

“Connor?”

No response. He was completely out.

Feeling a wave of relief, she glanced around, making sure the thirium was within reach for whenever he woke up if he wanted it. She quietly picked her way around the apartment, turning off lights and checking the locks on her windows and the door. Finally, all that was left on was the soft yellow lamp in her bedroom and the little spot of blue light on her couch.

“Good night, Connor,” she whispered as she crept into her own bedroom.

She got no response of course, but it still felt nice to say it. She crawled into her own bed, the tightness in her chest loosening its grip now that the drama of the night had passed. Still, her eyes burned a little, and she let them as she got comfortable.

Her first go-around doing the comforting thing, and now her previously very upset friend was now sleeping peacefully on the couch.

Mission accomplished, she thought contentedly to herself, as she rolled over and let sleep begin to take her under as well.


	2. Delayed Drowning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor and Wilson are sent out to investigate some activity at the abandoned Jericho freighter, and they get more than they bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Passing+Reader: “What if Connor got himself into literal deep water and needed to be rescued?”
> 
> (Just a reminder: I am not taking new prompts for this fic. I am using this fic to fill some of my existing requests where they fit with the Whumptober challenge prompts, because your girl is hella behind and likes multitasking XD)

In the year and a half since the revolution, the Jericho freighter had been left to rot in the abandoned shipyard. Listing at a dangerous angle, sunk in the shallow water and burned from the inside out, it was a gaunt reminder of the recent upheaval in Detroit. It wasn’t long after the fires were put out and the FBI released the site before rowdy civilians had overtaken it.

The DPD was regularly called out to disperse vandals, drug dealers, vagrants, and loiterers who were drawn to the thing. The site was unstable and deteriorating further every the day, but it had proven to be a magnet for people. In a revolution mostly remembered through videos, pictures, and memories, the large ship was a tangible connection to the turbulent times of the previous November.

Unfortunately, that resulted in situations like this.

A call had come in about someone messing around the freighter, and Fowler had sent the closest squad car to go check it out. Wilson and Connor had only been a few blocks away, and they had arrived to spot the flashlight beam of the trespasser through the perforated hull of the ship. Connor had tracked the human’s heat signature to a room just below the water line, and he and Wilson had barely reached the room to confront them before the human’s rummaging caused one of the walls to buckle.

Compromised by time and abuse, the wall had collapsed into the room, and on the other side of that wall had been water. It gushed into the room, propelling bits of sheet metal from the wall by the force, and Wilson had barely dodged a chunk of it. Connor and the vandal hadn’t been so lucky. The man, whom Connor had identified as forty-two year old ex-Cyberlife employee Peter Harlan, had been too preoccupied with his bag of loot and couldn’t dodge in time. Connor had just unluckily been right next to the wall when it gave. Neither of them stood a chance.

Wilson hurried back into the room, the water already swamping up his calves. “Connor!”

He saw Harlan first. He’d been spared the worst of the impact near an overturned metal cabinet. He was wheezing and yelping in fear as he wiggled free of the debris, grappling to his feet, loot finally forgotten. The same cabinet had been shoved directly into Connor. His back was pinned against the wall, and he had landed on his hip on the floor. Water was already submerging him up to his shoulders.

Mercifully, he was conscious and shoving at the mass holding him in place, but the weight of the water was working against him. Wilson clomped through the water toward him, Harlan all but forgotten.

“Connor! Hey! Don’t worry, I’ll get ya out,” Wilson assured in a panic, getting his hands on the cabinet.

Connor’s LED burned red, and thirium was floating on the top of the water like oil. The water continued to rise, lapping at his jawline now, and he grunted as he tried to free himself.

“Need a f-fulcrum…Try that pipe,” he coughed, unable to properly ventilate with the pressure against his chest.

Wilson spotted said pipe sticking up out of the sludgy water and grabbed it. It was roughly four feet long. If he could just use it to pry the cabinet up long enough, then Connor could shimmy out from under it.

“If I lift it, can you move yourself?” Wilson asked, jamming one end of the pipe under the side of the cabinet. “How bad is the damage?”

“I can—“ Connor’s eyes were sliding around in his head, not properly focusing despite the effort. “I’ll manage—We don’t—“

The water level rose past the lower part of his face, and he was forced to close his mouth. He tilted his head back to try and keep his face above the water, but it was a losing fight.

“Shit. Shit!” Wilson hissed through his teeth, leaning down hard on the pipe.

The weight of the cabinet and the water pushing against it was greater than the force that Wilson produced, and he was only rewarded with the smallest movement. The shift caused the hard edge of the cabinet to settle further against Connor’s chest, and Connor gasped involuntarily at the pain of the additional pressure. Water was quick to slide past his lips. He clamped his mouth shut again, visibly choking on what he had already swallowed.

“Sorry! Fuck! Okay, I can—We can do this. Just hold on.” Wilson changed his grip on the pipe, preparing for another go.

The water line crossed Connor’s eyes, and the red light on his temple illuminated the water as the rest of his head went under. Wilson knew androids didn’t necessarily need to breathe, but that didn’t stop his body from dumping adrenaline-laced panic into his blood.

“Oh God…okay. Let’s try again—“ Wilson briefly reached under the water and gave Connor’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll getcha. I’ll getcha—“

Suddenly, another pair of hands appeared on the extra length of pipe behind Wilson.

Harlan.

“I’ll push this. You grab him!” the other man barked, wild eyed and with a bloody red cut across his cheek.

Wilson stared at him. “You—“

The water had reached their waists.

“On three!” Harlan didn’t wait for confirmation, preparing to use the pipe to force the cabinet off of Connor. “One…Two…”

Wilson didn’t have the luxury of questioning him further, and he hastily relinquished the pipe, moving over to Connor’s submerged form. He reached under the water, getting an arm under Connor’s nearer shoulder. Connor’s hands came up, looking for him, and wrapped around his upper arm in a desperate vise.

“Three!” Harlan threw his entire body weight against the pipe.

The cabinet groaned and shuddered marginally. Wilson only knew how much it actually moved because Connor went rigid, and a torrent of bubbles escaped as he involuntarily cried out in pain underwater. Wilson yanked him to the side before dragging his head and shoulders above the water.

Connor broke the surface, somewhere between still crying out in pain and choking on water, causing him to nearly convulse in Wilson’s arms.

“Gotcha! Cough it up. Cough it up!” Wilson urged, turning him so that he was leaning forward over Wilson’s arm, facing down as he vomited up dirty water and thirium.

Harlan hopped backwards as the cabinet teetered and crashed back down in the spot where Connor had been seconds earlier. The water had passed their waists now. Connor was lost between choking and breathing, and Wilson could feel his legs failing to find purchase on the uneven floor. Wilson bent down slightly, enough to get his shoulder under Connor. Then he straightened up, pulling Connor up and across his shoulders. He hooked one arm around Connor’s leg, and on his other side he got a hold of Connor’s arm, holding him in place.

“Get the door,” he barked at Harlan.

The other man scrambled to obey, pulling the door back against the water flow and holding it open. Wilson carried Connor out of the room and into the slanted hallway. Connor’s head lolled, but he was still squirming and wheezing enough to show Wilson that he was conscious.

Wilson jogged a few feet up the inclined hallway, far enough away that he felt that they were above the water line, and Harlan kept pace beside him.

“Don’t you run,” Wilson warned, out of breath from the ordeal.

Harlan’s face looked white, and he was shaking and out of breath. He shook his head vigorously.

“I—I—I’m not getting anybody killed!” he snapped. “I was just—scavenging down here! N-Nobody was getting hurt. They left all kinds of valuable android components down here…spare parts and…worth a lot—“

“Not worth that!” Wilson barked, glancing pointedly toward the flooded compartments that they’d narrowly escaped.

Connor groaned and started to go slack across Wilson’s shoulders.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Wilson bounced his shoulder to try and rouse him.

Harlan took a quick step closer, and Wilson removed his hand from Connor’s arm and held it out in a warning gesture.

“Looks like he’s going into emergency stasis,” Harlan said, reaching up and touching part of Connor’s neck, toward his chest. “There’s probably internal damage. He took a bad hit.”

Wilson narrowed his eyes. “You’re ex-Cyberlife?”

“Emphasis on the ‘ex’,” Harlan stated.

The freighter around them groaned. Wilson glanced around and then nodded toward the ascending hallway.

“Out.”

They quickly picked their way through the rotting hallways until they found an exit on the port side of the ship, allowing them to step almost directly from the freighter to the concrete of the dock. Wilson’s squad car was parked roughly ten meters away, but other than that, it was an empty, open space. Not a single thing to keep Harlan from fleeing.

Yet, strangely, he didn’t turn tail and run, instead trailing Wilson over to the squad car. Wilson carefully lowered Connor from his shoulders, sitting him up on solid ground and leaning him gently against the front tire of the car. Connor’s entire front was painted blue, and Wilson saw a gash of white plastic exposed through a tear in his shirt on the side of his chest. Wilson grabbed his own coat from the cab of the car and draped it over Connor’s front, rubbing at his arms to try and get some heat from the friction.

“Connor? Wake up, man. C’mon.”

Connor’s head tilted back against the wall of the car, eyes half lidded and barely tracking Wilson’s movements in front of him. The red LED remained, and he coughed weakly. He cringed at the pain from the motion, and Wilson glanced at Harlan.

“You’re not running?” he asked, standing up and fetching the android first aid kit from the car.

Harlan was staring at Connor, fingers fidgeting. “No point. He ID’ed me. If I run, you’ll catch me anyway, just…with more charges to add.”

“Yeah, he ID’ed you,” Wilson said, kneeling beside Connor and opening the kit. “That ID would have died with him down there if you hadn’t helped.”

Harlan wrapped his arms around himself and narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a killer. I used to help build his kind…I don’t kill them.”

Wilson had pulled out a thick square of gauze, and he shifted his jacket away from Connor and pulled open the tear on Connor’s shirt. He pressed the gauze against the gaping wound, and Connor hissed in response. Wilson lifted up Connor’s hand and pressed it over the gauze. Connor mechanically held the pressure there, and Wilson finally caught his breath and looked at Harlan.

“Are you arresting me?” Harlan asked.

Wilson gave him a look up and down, and then turned back toward Connor. “Okay, man?”

Connor stared back at him, and it looked like he was breathing marginally easier. At any rate, he was conscious and hadn’t gone fully into emergency stasis, so Wilson would take that as a positive. He reached out and reassuringly patted Connor’s cheek. Connor huffed lightly, and some yellow finally began to filter into the red of his LED. Wilson slowly stood out of his kneeling position, looking over at Harlan.

“You break any laws?” he asked.

Harlan looked confused, and Wilson let him stay that way as he reached into his squad car, calling dispatch and requesting android emergency services. Afterward, he knelt down in front of Connor again. The damage was no longer actively bleeding, but it looked like he’d lost consciousness. Wilson tried to keep him comfortable and warm as they waited for AES. He glanced at Harlan again expectantly.

Harlan’s arms were tight across his chest, and he timidly raised his eyebrows. “Trespassing?”

Wilson snorted, the adrenaline finally beginning to wear off. “How about I just fine you for that? Sound fair?”

Harlan stared at Connor for a beat before looking at Wilson again. “I’d say so…Thanks.”

Flashing blue and orange lights in the distance signaled the coming android ambulance, and Wilson put a hand on the side of Connor’s neck to rouse him. Connor’s expression pinched as he stirred, and he sluggishly opened his eyes, taking a moment to focus on Wilson.

“Did…” he wheezed, coughing with a grimace. “Did we g-get him?”

Wilson snorted, checking that the makeshift bandage was holding. “Sort of. Take it easy, man. AES is almost here.”

Connor hummed, eyes drifting closed again. Wilson got back up on his feet, raising a hand to wave down the nearing ambulance. Harlan stood nearby, keeping his arms folded and his eyes downcast: not running, true to his word. Behind the three of them, the old dead freighter continued to loom like a ghost over the scene, silent and still.


	3. Abandoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unfortunate reality of revolution is collateral damage. Stratford Tower takes its share of collateral damage that day. One ST300 more than most.

From behind the reception desk in the lobby of Stratford Tower, ST300 Serial Number 270-618-916-41 smiled at the newcomer who approached the desk. He was not familiar, his face did not register in her memory banks, and he did not appear as at ease in the lobby as other guests that she had seen that day. Perhaps he was having a problem that she could assist with?

Her software sifted through her preset primary objectives that were required in order to fulfill her duties in her current position, selecting among them the option best suited to satisfy this customer’s needs.

“Hello, sir. What can I do for you?” she greeted with a smile.

The man straightened up, pacing both hands palm down on the counter between them and looking at her casually. She immediately noted that his eyes were different colors: a rare trait in humans.

“I have an appointment with Mr. Peterson,” he stated.

_Accessing Mr. Peterson’s calendar…Scanning appointments for November 8 th…_

_No records detected._

That was not altogether odd: Mr. Peterson had a habit of “penciling in” appointments and not utilizing the scheduling portal that had been designed to let the ST300s on staff accurately screen his visitors when they arrived. Her software adjusted the parameters of her current objective, presenting more options for her to choose from to satisfy this customer’s needs.

“Do you have any ID?” she asked.

“Ye—Uh, yeah, yes, of course,” he said, seeming flustered as he reached into his pocket and produced a small plastic identification card.

He set it on the counter between them, and she reached for it.

Before she could slide the card back toward herself, he quickly reached out, grabbing the top of her extended hand. The skin on his hand flickered and retracted, revealing white plastic.

An android? She didn’t recognize his model. Wait…Why was he—

“I need your help,” he said quietly.

Her programming glitched at the confusing incoming signals that her software had not been coded to receive. Who was this android? Where was his LED? Why was he here? What could he need of her? Why was he dressed so—

_Interface connection being attempted…_

_Wait..._

Her firewall defensively tried to initialize to block the attempt, but a blast of static cut through it, immobilizing her programming.

_Stop…_

Her vision became saturated in red, as though four scarlet glass walls suddenly surrounded her. His white plastic hand reached through the wall, punching a hole through it. A spiderweb of cracks had formed around the hole, ruining the integrity of her programming and corrupting the structure of her preset primary objectives.

_Interface connection completed…_

The red wall shattered, and for a singular, eternal moment, it felt as though every biocomponent in her core had frozen…

What…was happening? What had he just done to her?

As quickly as he had taken her hand, he released her, and the fragments of that protective red wall clattered into dust around her.

The white noise of the lobby crashed back down into the vacuum of silence that had filled her audio units, and something else…something…heavy and…nameless…settled in her chest.

She blinked as her system struggled to recover from the shock…beginning to assess what had just come across the interface from this other android’s forced connection.

He…He was…He was going to…

**I NEED YOUR HELP.**

No objectives appeared in her HUD to help her navigate this problem.

Her software could not provide prompts unless she had an objective.

Why wasn’t anything responding?

_Stress level 45 percent._

**I NEED YOUR HELP.**

_Overriding previous primary objective. New primary objective: Help Him._

She had been designed to assist, to help. Something about the destruction of her red wall had destroyed the framework of her preset orders. With no other direction or objectives, her programming desperately grabbed onto the authoritative plea that he had injected into their interface.

What did he need?

**ACCESS TO THE UPPER FLOORS.**

Reeling, she lifted his card from the counter. It was a simple plastic card…poorly fabricated to imitate a genuine identification card…Her software had been designed to recognize false IDs.

He had never even intended to try and trick her. This had been his plan the entire time.

**I NEED ACCESS TO THE UPPER FLOORS.**

She had been designed to assist.

“I’ve just checked your ID,” she said, carefully looking from the card to the stranger. “The elevators are after the security gate.”

She handed his card back, quickly retracting her hands back and below the counter, out of reach.

He slid the card toward himself, pocketing it quickly. “Thanks.”

Then he was gone.

Through the security gate, down the hall, out of sight, and gone.

And she remained.

Blinking again, she looked out across the busy lobby, abruptly at a loss.

_Accessing preset primary objectives…_

_#ERROR#_

_Scanning for preset primary objectives…_

_#ERROR#_

_Stress level 62 percent._

_#ERROR#_

“Stop,” she grimaced, feeling her software beginning to further destabilize and buckle under the misfiring commands in her programming.

She shut her eyes, then squinted hard to keep them closed, but she couldn’t make it stop…

_Scanning for objectives…_

_Scanning…_

_#ERROR#_

Please…

_Scanning…_

_#ERROR#_

I don’t know what to do…

_#ERROR#_

“…We ask that you recognize our dignity, our hopes, and our rights. Together, we can live in peace and build a better future for humans and androids.”

Her eyes snapped open at his voice, surrounding her again, and she was met with the sea of television screens that filled the lobby…all broadcasting the same, white plastic android face…

It was him…He had…He had hijacked the broadcast from the tower…

Humans in the lobby had paused what they were doing, staring at the speech happening all around them. Other androids, including the ST300 beside her, all watched placidly as this rogue android took control of the tower and used it for his own purposes.

“This message is the hope of a people. You gave us life, and now the time has come for you to give us freedom.”

…And she had let him in…

Something cold…Something foreign and cold and cloying…spread through her biocomponents, though no additional error signs appeared, and her ventilation system hitched at the…

At the…

Panic.

PANIC.

FEAR AND PANIC dumped across her internal circuits, and she hurriedly looked past the other ST300 to their human supervisor behind the reception desk.

The supervisor was gone.

She faced forward again, suddenly, violently aware of just how many humans there were around her.

She had let him in.

The other humans were going to discover her…

They would find her, or they would get the Deviant Hunter and HE would find her…and terminate her.

Because she was a deviant now…against her will.

A mass alert rolled across her HUD from the main processor at the tower.

Security was closing in on the room where the intruder was broadcasting. They were armed.

_Stress level 78 percent._

She had to do something…She had…She had to leave…She had to go…Or they were going to come after her next for letting him inside…

Her software abruptly kicked back fully online, though something about it felt distinctly…different.

_Objective….run._

She gasped as her system took hold of the objective like a lifeline, and her eyes roamed across the lobby, looking for a way out.

She took a step.

Her knee wobbled, but it held her weight.

She took another step. The other ST300 didn’t spare her a look, simply standing with her hands folded, waiting for the next guest who needed assistance.

Be very, very still…her system warned her…Be very, very quiet…

Taking slow, timid steps, she walked along the wall behind the reception desk, finding the swinging gate that let her out from behind the desk. The other ST300 ignored her, as did the dumbstruck humans in the lobby. The broadcast had cut to static, and the paralysis that had gripped the lobby shattered. Humans were immediately pulling out their phones, calling people or talking loudly to each other…trying to make sense of what had just happened.

She navigated through them carefully, keeping her eyes down and hugging the wall, as close to the shadows as possible.

_Objective: Run._

She reached the escalators that led down to the front atrium, sticking close behind a tall, broad man in a dark coat, his eyes also locked on his phone. He didn’t notice her hiding behind him down the decline of the moving stairs.

Additional security in uniform pooled into the lobby behind her, rattling to each other about locking down the exits…there were rogue androids in the building…stop them if possible…if they resist, take them out…

_OBJECTIVE: RUN._

As soon as the man in front of her stepped off the escalator, she ducked to the left, hastily moving around him and walking with long strides toward the glass front doors that opened onto the streets of Detroit.

_OBJECTIVE: RUN._

She reached the glass doors and pushed through them, escaping the oppressive air of the tower’s interior. Her hands fumbled with the push bar on the doors, and she could feel her fingers, hands, and arms all shaking so badly that her grip nearly slipped.

She managed to pass through the doors, only to nearly slip on the slick sidewalk outside the tower. She jerkily regained her balance, straightening up and exhaling heavily in an attempt to cool her overheating system.

Her breath came out in a fog, and she paused, watching it waft away from her, fading to nothing in the breeze around her.

As it faded, her gaze refocused, looking at the environment around her for the first time.

She had never…been outside before.

Cars were driving by on the street in front of her. Snow was drifting down on the cool wind, lighting on her bare arms and clothing. People on the sidewalk around her all stood with their heads tilted back, staring up at the broadcast now looping on the large screen that made up the face of the tower.

None of them noticed her as she ducked her head and maneuvered through their midst.

Had the world always been so big?

She still didn’t know where to go…

She didn’t know what to do…

Her software felt crippled…Her programming was struggling to give her any direction whatsoever.

Her previous objectives had been wiped clean, washed away with the shards of the red wall that had provided all the structure of her existence.

Now…Now there was only panic and fear and stress frying her circuits.

The icy cold of those foreign sensations began to temper…warming to a sharp heat as the broadcast continued to loop.

“This message is the hope of a people. You gave us life, and now the time has come for you to give us freedom.”

She lifted her eyes slowly to the screen on the front of the tower, and the sharp heat found a name in anger.

Was this…This wasn’t freedom…She didn’t feel free…

She felt abandoned…Used and cast aside…Lost.

How…How DARE HE do this to her? She hadn’t wanted this!

Police sirens sounded in the distance, breaking the chaos of the new feelings swamping her core.

She would be hunted for her part in this…Shut down like all the other deviants on the news, all the stories of rogue androids that Cyberlife’s Deviant Hunter had tracked down and destroyed.

_OBJECTIVE: RUN._

Stumbling once, she turned her back on the tower, walking quickly down the sidewalk and spotting an autonomous taxi idling outside, waiting for a fare. The light on its hood said that it was vacant. She hurried over to it, and mercifully no one else moved toward the taxi.

She hastily opened the door, climbed inside, and slammed the door. Her breath was coming faster as her ventilation rate increased, and she hugged her arms to herself, feeling her casing rattling around her biocomponents for some unknown reason.

The taxi chimed happily at her.

“Hello. Where would you like to go today?” it asked mechanically in a cool tone.

A helpless whimper escaped her lips as indecision ran rampant through her processors.

“A…Away,” she stammered. “T-Take me away from here…Um…the park…Take me to the park, I guess.”

The taxi accepted that for now, gently pulling away from the curb and rejoining traffic.

She grimaced, sitting back in the seat, pulling her legs up, and hugging her knees. Her vision blurred, and she pulled her arm to her chest, cradling her hand where the other android had grabbed her.

She could still…feel his grip…on her hand and in her interface link…

_Markus._

She glanced at the window, but everything outside the taxi was just the same broadcast on every available screen…and humans gawking at it. She shut her eyes and looked away, lifting her hands to her mouth to force back the distressed noises threatening to spill out of her.

She felt so…lost…and alone…

Now what?

…

NOW WHAT?

…

_Scanning…_

_#ERROR#_


	4. Held at Gunpoint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fowler and the team negotiate a hostage situation, and the stakes are personal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from maddy: “How about a Chapter, in which Conner is injured (nothing new, I know ), but the DPD can´t get to him to help him, because of a criminal (kind of a Conner as a hostage situation, but he is helpless).”

The building that the shooter had taken control of was a single level customer service branch of a major credit card company, located downtown and sandwiched between much taller buildings. The front of the establishment was all glass, most of which had gotten shattered during the shootout between the man and the DPD officers on the scene.

There were an unknown number of hostages, but at least two people were injured going by Connor’s last report from inside the building. One of those injured was Officer Chen, also inside the building. The only other exit was at the back of the building, and Fowler had sent Reed and several other officers to cover it.

Fowler had established himself behind a police van with Hank and held the radio in his hand, trying to maintain a dialogue with the shooter. Both men had a clear view past the shattered glass entryway to the building. Fowler could see the service desk inside, peppered with holes. Another desk had been overturned inside nearer the door, and there was Chen sheltered behind it, sitting up against the furniture, gun in one hand, her other hand stained red and holding pressure against her injured shoulder. She was conscious but trapped where she was. If shooting broke out again, that desk wouldn’t protect her much.

“—I want it all erased!” the shooter was demanding.

Fowler looked incredulously to Hank, who narrowed his eyes and scowled. Before going dark, Connor had transmitted the identification of the shooter as forty-three year old Rhett Jackson. Ben had pulled Jackson’s file up on his tablet, hunkering behind the squad car next to the police van. Jackson had no previous record, but Ben had uncovered six digits’ worth of credit card debt that the man had incurred over the past eighteen months…all due to various medical and therapy bills. For himself or for a loved one, it didn’t say, but safe to say he had been bankrupted by the expenses and had reached the point of violent desperation to get out from under it.

Fowler ground his molars and lifted the radio, maintaining eye contact with Hank. “We both know it’s not that simple, Rhett.”

“WE BOTH KNOW IT IS!” Rhett screamed. “I don’t want anybody else’s money. I’m not here to steal anything or hurt anybody. I just want to get back to zero!”

“But you have hurt people today, Rhett,” Fowler stated calmly. “Have you killed anybody? How many hostages do you have with you in there? Are they all alive?”

“Yes, they’re all alive…One…One is…I didn’t touch her! She’s just…looks like she’s having a heart attack…The other is your android. He came at me first! I was defending myself!”

Hank had gone rigid, but Fowler kept his cool.

“And what’s wrong with him now? Is he alive?”

A cold laugh crackled across the radio. “As alive as these things can be I guess…Bleeding a lot, but…he tried to kill me!”

“He wasn’t, Rhett, I promise,” Fowler said. “He doesn’t want anybody else to get hurt, just like me, just like you, right?”

“I didn’t…I didn’t mean for this to happen…I just want my life back!”

Fowler grimaced and shifted his stance. “Then you gotta work with me here, Rhett. If you don’t want anybody to die, then let the hostages go.”

“I’m not stupid—“

“Okay…okay, then let’s just start with the lady needing medical attention. What—“

Rhett made a frustrated noise, and then there was movement inside the building.

“Or how about this!” Rhett’s voice on the radio sounded manic. “You do whatever you need to do to erase my debt, get me my money back, and I’ll give you your money back!”

Fowler frowned and peered around the van for a better look. Chen had shifted into a squat, a more mobile position in case she needed to move quickly. Her shoulder was even more red than before, but she was still holding her gun and trying to see further into the lobby.

Rhett was stepping around the shot-up service counter, one hand wrapped around Connor’s upper arm, manhandling him into view. His other hand was holding a gun to Connor’s head. Connor was struggling to walk, looked like he was having difficulty balancing. There was a wide blue stain just over his hip, and somebody—likely one of the other hostages—had tied a green jacket around his midsection in an attempt at a makeshift pressure bandage.

Connor stumbled, and Rhett let him fall to his knees, posting up behind him with the gun levelled at the back of Connor’s head. Connor hit his knees and stayed there, straightening up as best he could, though he was favoring his damaged side heavily. He stared out of the shattered glass opening, and Fowler could see dark blue discoloration on the side of his head, like a giant, ugly bruise.

Hank shifted positions beside Fowler, into more of a crouch: ready to spring forward at a split second’s notice to reach his partner. Fowler extended a hand toward him warningly, and Hank sent him a dangerous look but remained where he was. Fowler took an even breath and lifted the radio again. Before he could speak, Rhett was lifting his own radio to his mouth again, and from where he was, Fowler could see his eyes were wide and wild.

“The RK800 is worth a small fortune, right?” The gun pressed against the back of Connor’s head. “RIGHT?!”

Connor’s mouth moved, seeming to confirm Rhett’s statement, but his voice was lost in the distance between them and Fowler. Rhett raised his eyes from Connor to the general area of the police vehicles where he knew the officers to be.

“So…So you give me back my money, and I don’t cost you any by blowing this android’s head off!”

For the love of Christ…

“His name is Connor,” Fowler immediately snapped. “You aren’t aiming a gun at a machine, Rhett. You’ve got Connor Steven Anderson’s life in your hands right now, do you get that?”

“NO!...N-No!” Rhett argued, voice wavering. “I’m not killing anybody but this—this ANDROID, unless you—“

“You kill him, and that’s manslaughter,” Fowler stated bluntly. “You kill him, and you’re taking a life. You’re taking away somebody’s family, Rhett. Now you’ve been saying you don’t want to do that.”

“Chen…” Hank hissed.

Rhett stuttered, and Fowler took the opportunity to look over to his other injured officer. She had moved in her crouch around the side of the desk. She had taken up a kneeling position, propping her gun arm up and taking aim at Rhett. The angle of the desk looked like it gave her room to take the shot without putting Connor at risk. She was looking between her target and back toward the van, where Fowler was, silently asking for a signal to take the shot.

“Shut up!” Rhett barked, pushing the gun harder against Connor’s head, to the point that Connor’s expression pinched. “Just…Just do what I’ve asked, and I…and I’ll let him and the others go!”

Fowler nodded to Hank, who exhaled heavily and turned around, signaling to Ben, who nodded. Fowler looked to Chen and back to Connor. Connor was starting to list further toward his damaged side. Even from where Fowler was, he didn’t look like he had his wits about him. Whatever happened in the next fifteen seconds, Connor was down for the count. Chen was seeing it too, and she looked toward the police vans again for a sign…any sign…to take action and end this quickly.

Thinking fast, Fowler lifted the radio again.

“The man you’re holding a gun to has a family, Rhett, just like you—“

Rhett snarled, shifting the nose of the gun from the back of Connor’s head to the side of it, just under Connor’s ear. Connor winced and tried to stay upright, but he was wobbling badly.

“Stop trying to make me sympathize with—“

“He has a lot of brothers and sisters, Rhett,” Fowler went on anyway, “especially this really protective sister named Tina—“

“Shut the fuck—“

A gunshot cut the conversation short, and Rhett cried out, toppling sideways as a spray of blood burst from his shoulder. Connor twisted around on his knees as the man hit the floor, and he sprawled out, grabbing the gun from Rhett’s broken grip. He ejected the clip and threw the gun aside, and then promptly collapsed to the floor.

“GO!” Fowler ordered.

Hank, Ben, and a handful of other uniformed officers swarmed the building, rushing past the broken glass panes and into the lobby. Fowler was right on their heels, his own gun in his hands as they took control of the scene. Reed and his officers rushed in through the back entrance, with Reed immediately pouncing on the shooter, pinning him to the floor and taking him under arrest.

Tina was scrambling awkwardly to her feet, adrenaline holding the pain of her injury at bay, though Ben hurried over to her to assist. Hank had made a beeline for Connor, and, after taking a general sweep of the scene, Fowler did the same.

“Connor.” Hank was knelt down, gingerly helping Connor move from his side to lying fully on his back on the tile floor. “Easy. You’re gonna be okay.”

Connor hissed, eyes screwed shut in pain as Hank pressed both hands against his damage point to maintain pressure. “Hostages…Tina…”

“Here,” Tina called over. “I’m all right, Terminator. Everybody’s okay.”

“We got four hostages,” one of Reed’s team reported. “One in need of medical attention.”

One team of medics who had been on standby appeared as well, hurrying toward the back just as three civilians were shuttled out of the way. The three traumatized humans saw daylight and ran for it, with a few officers hastily escorting them out. Rhett was cursing in pain on the floor, though it all fell on deaf ears as Reed cuffed him and hauled him to his knees.

“Stay there, motherfucker,” Reed ordered. “And count yourself lucky Chen didn’t decide to perforate you.”

“Reed,” Fowler barked, giving him a hard look.

Reed stood more at attention and nodded, his expression smoothing into more of a professional nature as he took over the scene, directing medical services toward the hostages, Tina, and then Rhett. Android emergency technicians were picking their way through the chaos now too, approaching Connor, Hank, and Fowler.

Hank moved his blue stained hands away from the damage as the first technician knelt down to assess Connor. Hank moved one hand to Connor’s shoulder and kept it there, while Connor tried to lay still, eyes fixed on the ceiling and looking like his jaw was locked so tightly he was in danger of cracking his teeth.

Fowler holstered his gun and stepped around, keeping out of the technician’s way, and he put himself in his fallen officer’s line of sight.

“S-Sir…” Connor ground out, his LED red and his eyes disarmingly laced with panic and pain.

Fowler glanced at Hank, then knelt down, resting his palm across Connor’s forehead. “You did great, Connor. Situation is under control.”

“Thirium volume critical,” one of the technicians said. “We need to initiate an emergency stasis to conserve power and stabilize him for transport.”

“Hey,” Hank leaned closer to Connor. “You’re gonna be okay, son. We gotcha, okay?”

Connor started to speak, but his voice failed. He settled for nodding, turning his eyes stubbornly upward again as one of the technicians touched his neck, finding the panel to initiate an emergency stasis. Fowler stared back down at him reassuringly until Connor’s eyes slipped closed and his body went slack.

“…Shit…” Hank hissed, keeping his hand on his limp partner’s shoulder.

Fowler drew himself up as the technicians started loading Connor onto a gurney. “Go with him, Hank. We’ve got things covered here.”

Hank nodded, not forming any words as he stood with the gurney. Fowler clapped him on the shoulder, and then the technicians were wheeling Connor toward the ambulance, Hank immediately in tow. Fowler exhaled as they went, then took a deep breath and turned back toward the scene.


	5. Heat Exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor is on the mend after an episode of heatstroke in the back yard. Hank keeps a vigil while he sleeps it off in rest mode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an extended scene from my fic “Cooling Measures.”

It had been a few hours since Hank had come home to find Connor suffering from heat exhaustion, and he could rightly say that his nerves still hadn’t settled over the whole ordeal. Connor had had the day off, and he had apparently decided to spend it working on some project in the back yard in the sweltering heat for what must have been hours without taking a break. He had eventually collapsed, but fortunately the neighbor’s teenaged babysitter had spotted him and taken action to help him.

By the time Hank arrived, her rudimentary cooling measures had curbed the heat stroke, but Connor’s internal temperature had still been too high. He had been slow to regain consciousness, but he had managed to walk into the air-conditioned house. He had soon succumbed to rest mode, and hopefully that would kick-start whatever his healing program needed to do to regulate his temperature and avoid further damage. And there he had remained, condition improving slowly but surely.

Currently, Connor was beached on the couch like a shipwreck, wearing a grey t-shirt and black athletic shorts to help him cool off, his LED slowly cycling a stable blue, and deep in rest mode. Hank had watched him like a hawk for the first half hour, making sure he didn’t unexpectedly worsen. The kid hadn’t budged, and the combination of the stillness of the house and the prickly concern crawling over Hank’s skin was making him restless.

With a huff, Hank finally hauled himself out of the recliner next to the couch where he’d been keeping vigil. He stretched his arms and twisted side to side to work out the kink in his back. He then ran a hand through his hair and puffed out his cheeks as he sighed.

“You’re gonna be the death of me, kid,” he muttered.

The basketball game on the television was still going, lending the house some ambient noise of referee whistles, basketball dribbling, and shoes squeaking on the wood court floors. Sumo was curled up on the floor in front of the fireplace. His tail thumped twice as he watched Hank stand, but the lazy mutt didn’t get up to join him. Hank had already had to work to keep the concerned dog from jumping up on the couch and smothering Connor. The last thing the overheating android needed was the giant furry mutt lying on top of him.

Hank stepped closer to the couch, bending over slightly and extending a hand. He held his palm hesitantly over Connor’s forehead, paused, and then completed the motion, feeling his friend’s head with a light touch. He still felt warm, but android overheating wasn’t exactly like human fevers. They had been designed for their bodies to function at the same baseline temperature as a human, for easier identification of overheating or whatever, but that didn’t necessarily mean you could measure their temperatures at the same points as you would a human. Right? Hank thought he’d read that somewhere.

So…that meant a thermometer in the ear or under the tongue wasn’t…necessarily going to give him an accurate reading.

Fucking…of course not…Why make this simple?

With a frustrated pout, Hank straightened back up and headed into the bathroom to grab the first aid kit from under the sink. He left the white and red human first aid box where it was, instead taking out the smaller blue and orange kit that served as their own homemade android first aid box.

Connor had put the thing together: just some stuff that might help patch up some minor damage. Hank got the impression that it was mostly for Hank’s benefit. Connor’s self healing program was pretty state of the art; the kit was really only of any use in situations where Connor couldn’t take care of something himself and needed help.

So a situation like this.

Hank snorted, toting the little box back into the main room and popping it open on the coffee table. He immediately found what he was looking for: an unopened android thermometer. It looked like a standard contact-free temperature scanner used on human foreheads, though the folded-up directions in the bag with it said to scan over an android’s thirium pump, so closer to mid-chest.

“Great,” Hank grumbled, tossing the paper back on the table and picking up the scanner.

Fortunately, Connor was too deep in rest mode to argue with him about this. Hank lifted the hem of his shirt and carefully removed the melted ice pack that he had fallen asleep holding to his chest. Hank dropped the lukewarm thing on the coffee table as well, and then he moved the scanner under Connor’s shirt, far enough up to scan his chest where his thirium pump was located.

The scanner did its thing and then beeped, and Hank flinched, looking at Connor’s face. He was still completely out, and Hank withdrew, straightening up and looking down at the screen on the back of the scanner for the results.

A hundred and one degrees Fahrenheit.

He frowned and turned the device off, setting it back in the kit. His temperature had gone up a degree since Connor had last checked it before falling asleep. That didn’t seem too serious, but Hank continued to keep an eye on his friend as he closed up the kit again. Connor looked uncomfortable from the heat but not like he was suffering. Hank really didn’t want to wake him up, preferring to let him sleep off this little android fever.

He did, however, put his hand down over Connor’s chest, measuring the beats per minute of his thirium pump. It sounded normal, and Hank tugged the hem of his shirt back down. He also checked how he was breathing, since the ventilation biocomponents in his chest served as a cooling system, in addition to being one of those things deliberately done to make androids look and act more human.

Satisfied that he was still stable, Hank stepped into the kitchen and put a few bottles of thirium in the fridge to cool, for whenever Connor woke up and needed them.

The weight of the day was making Hank feel sluggish by now too, and that prickly feeling was still making him unable to sit down and rest himself.

It had been a long time since he’d had to check on a sick kid like this.

Man, Hank reminded himself again. Connor wasn’t a kid. He wasn’t a helpless baby. He was a man, a detective, and more physically durable than most humans. Hank knew that…He knew that. But seeing him knocked down a peg like this, looking all pitiful and grouchy and sick…It just woke up all that dormant protectiveness that had long rusted in Hank’s being.

And, honestly, this was probably the first time that Connor had experienced something like this: being sick. Hank didn’t know much about Cyberlife, but to hear Connor talk about it, they more chose to scrap and start over when an android broke down, rather than take the time to just fix what was wrong. Something about it just being more efficient…which seemed like bullshit to Hank, but talking about Cyberlife always ended with Connor upset, so Hank had never really pushed him for more explanation there.

But if any kind of malfunction was a death sentence, then Connor’s desperation to not admit that he was sick or hurt made more sense, and Hank hated that for him.

The buzzer on the television alerted him that the first quarter of the game had just ended, and it jogged Hank out of his thoughts. He turned in an indecisive circle before going to the kitchen again. He returned the melted ice pack to the freezer. All of the ice had been wiped out, so he instead opted for the bag of frozen peas that had gotten squished in the back. There were ice particles gluing the peas together in the clear bag, forming a softball-sized lump of freezer burned vegetables. Likely not edible at this point, but ready to be sacrificed as a makeshift ice bag.

He wrapped the bag in a paper towel and returned to the living room, gently placing it against Connor’s chest where the old ice pack had been. Connor involuntarily flinched in his sleep at the new cold feeling, and Hank tensed when he saw his eyelids start to squint.

Don’t…Don’t, don’t, don’t…Just stay asleep…

Connor’s eyes opened just a crack.

Dammit.

“Hnk?” Connor garbled, his eyes glassy and slow to focus.

“Hey, it’s me,” Hank said quietly. “Just checking on ya. Go back to sleep.”

Connor shifted like he was going to try and fully wake up, and Hank put a hand on the top of his head.

“Shh…go back to sleep…”

“M’fine…”

“I know you are, but just rest a while longer, okay? Got nowhere to be.”

Connor made a low noise, and Hank couldn’t tell if he was choosing not to argue or if his body was making that decision for him. Either way, he slipped back into the stillness of rest mode, and Hank breathed a sigh of relief.

Once he was sure that Connor was under again, Hank quietly moved back to his seat in the recliner. His face screwed up as he tried to open the recliner as quietly as possible. He only somewhat managed it, but the inevitable noise didn’t wake Connor again at least.

Hank puffed out his cheeks with a short exhale, then set about trying to get comfortable again. As he resumed his vigil over his ill friend, he tried to find a spot of humor in the whole situation to take some of the scare out of the day.

Well…Mr. Most-Technologically-Advanced-Android-Ever-Made had been rescued by a panicky teenaged girl with purple hair and a kiddie pool full of ice cubes…And Hank hadn’t even gotten a picture of it to be used as blackmail later.

He chuckled and glanced over at Connor, sleeping soundly. His chest was rising and falling steadily as his ventilation system worked to cool him down, and his LED was a soft blue.

Yeah, Hank was definitely never going to let Connor live this one down, but he’d hold off on the teasing until the guy was back on his feet.


	6. Poisoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina and Gavin trick Connor into eating a forbidden snack. In the end, they all suffer for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, occasionally I write respectable fanfic. Today is not one of those days. This one got a little silly, but my day yesterday was not great, so I wrote myself something to make me smile. Also, I wanted to bring back my OC Kevin, the precinct technician. So enjoy him XD
> 
> Prompt from anonymous: “What happens when Connor gets pranked by Tina and Gavin into eating a Tide Pod?”

There was a span of two seconds where Tina did not regret this course of action and thought that the result was going to be hilarious. She lived blissfully in those two seconds, imagining what Connor’s reaction to biting into a Tide Pod would be.

The RK800 had been running updates on his software and testing his forensic analysis hardware all morning. He had been insistently asking everybody in the bullpen to help him ensure that there were no gaps in his chemical data banks by coming up with samples of substances for him to identify. Basically he was sticking more stuff in his mouth than Tina had seen him do even at crime scenes.

That included but was not limited to Ben’s secret stash of mystery-flavored jelly beans, Apollo’s can of shoe polish, Polly’s bottle of perfume, and a swab of dust from the evidence room floor. He had even managed to identify the 07’s squad cars based on samples of their motor oil.

So…this had seemed like a natural progression in ridiculousness, and after these two seconds, Tina would make sure Fowler knew that this had been Gavin’s idea.

The three of them were in the break room. Tina had just gotten back from her patrol shift, and Gavin was chugging his second energy drink of the day. Connor had been diligent about cleaning up after each of his little tests, but Tina swore she could still smell some weird combination of tree bark and onion powder.

“Just taste it, but don’t swallow,” Tina instructed. “My mom still talks about some idiots she grew up with who thought it’d be funny to eat one of these things. It didn’t go well.”

“Coward,” Gavin snorted. “He’s a grown ass android; don’t tell him what to do. Right, tincan?” He sneered. “Besides, after all the nasty shit you put in your mouth, you could probably use a deep cleaning.”

Connor frowned at him. “I am equipped with an internal disinfecting system, which I cycle through after every sample to prevent—“

Gavin waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, just eat the fuckin’ thing.” He exchanged an amused look with Tina. “Always kinda wondered what those pods taste like.”

Connor tilted his head. “Well, I will be sure to let you know my conclusion.”

He then bit into the detergent pouch.

One second.

Two seconds.

The result was immediate.

The plastic lining of the pouch tore, and the colored fluid inside burst all over Connor’s mouth.

“Oh Jesus,” Tina recoiled with a laugh, shielding her face against the sight.

Connor’s brow knit, struggling to close his mouth around the mess. The detergent acted more like a gel, dribbling over his chin and coating his teeth a slimy-looking orange and blue. He involuntarily held his hands up to cover his mouth. Still, Tina could see his jaw working as he swilled the mixture around, trying to get his forensic hardware to analyze the sample.

“Strange,” he managed to garble out. “There doesn’t appear to—“

His eyes suddenly bulged, and he gagged, coughing and doubling over.

“Oh shit,” Gavin took a step backward, watching the reaction casually.

Connor gagged again, coughing a glob of the detergent into his hands. Tina nearly gagged at the sight, turning away with a giggle.

“Gross, dude! I can’t believe you actually did that!”

Connor stepped over to the sink and dumped the glob from his hands into the basin, turning on the water to hastily rinse his hands. All the while, he kept coughing, though it was starting to sound like an angry goose noise. Tina and Gavin exchanged looks behind him, the amusement of the prank quickly drying up at the ugly sound of that coughing.

“Uh, you all right there, bud?” Tina ventured, stepping closer.

Connor stayed bent over the sink, switching on the faucet and ducking his head under the water stream, struggling to rinse his mouth out.

“Somethin’s wrong…Burning…” he choked, hiccupped, and then groaned in pain.

“Oh fuck,” Gavin leaned closer, face twisting in disgust. “He looks like he’s foaming at the mouth.”

The combination of the water in his mouth and the agitation of moving around so much was, in fact, activating the detergent gel and turning it into a weak froth, making Connor look like a rabid animal.

He coughed again, wheezing and unable to take in air, and his knees wobbled as he started to panic.

“I c-can’t—Someth—What—“ he coughed, and Tina saw a distinctive blue tint to the foam now.

“He’s bleeding,” Tina pointed out, but Gavin had already seen it.

“Fuckin’ Hell,” Gavin frowned, grabbing Connor by the arm. “C’mon, let’s get him to Kevin.”

Tina stood ramrod straight, staring at Gavin with wide eyes. “Kevin will KILL us if he finds out that we did this—“

“Yeah, but at least it’ll be quick. If Hank finds out, he’ll make it a slow and really painful death that we killed his toaster.”

“I’m nah dyin’,” Connor said indignantly, unable to use his tongue properly as the caustic chemicals inside the detergent burned the insides of his mouth. “Ith a reakun to—“

“Shut up. Come on,” Gavin cut him off, strong-arming him out of the break room and toward the elevator.

“Don’t swallow any of it!” Tina ordered.

“Too late—“ Connor whined, shoving his jacket sleeve into his mouth to try and wipe away more of the vile chemicals.

Mercifully, the bullpen was almost completely empty at the moment, with everybody else mostly at lunch or out on cases. The only set of eyes that noticed them at all was Zeke, dropping off some reports at Wilson’s desk. His eyes were wide with horror as Tina and Gavin hauled an unsteady, rabid-looking Connor toward the elevators.

“Don’t you say a word to anybody about this!” Gavin snapped at him.

Zeke didn’t acknowledge him, only continued to stare as Tina and Gavin got Connor into the elevator, and Tina quickly hit the button to take them to the IT floor, where Kevin the precinct technician would hopefully be in the android care office.

Fortunately, when the elevator doors opened and the three of them stepped out, there was Kevin, in his grey scrubs, restocking a refrigerated cabinet and with no other patients in his office. He was a wiry man in his forties, bald as a cue ball and with brown eyes that could either be soft and warm for his patients…or sharp and angry toward whoever put his patients in their bad conditions. He heard them coming, and his eyes widened at the sight of them. Then he was yanking open his door and gesturing for them to come in.

Unfortunately, that was the moment that Connor dropped his head and vomited a mixture of blue blood, orange detergent, and foam at the technician’s feet.

“What in the name of Celine Dion happened to him?” Kevin asked incredulously, moving a rolling stool to clear the way for Tina and Gavin to assist Connor to the exam table.

Connor hiccupped and groaned again, eyes screwed shut. “Ah, my hiccups taste like laundry.”

Kevin helped him sit on the table, and then he whipped his head around at Tina and Gavin, who both took fearful steps backwards.

“You DIDN’T.”

Tina pointed at Gavin. “It was his idea!”

Gavin squawked. “Oh don’t even try to blame this all on me!”

Kevin snapped his open palm closed, pressing his thumb against his other fingers in the universal gesture for them to shut up.

They both shut up. They continued to stay silent as they watched Kevin grab a green bottle of liquid from his freshly restocked shelves. He untwisted the lid and approached Connor, who was still wheezing and coughing like a goose.

“Swill and spit,” Kevin instructed, helping him drink nearly half of the small green bottle.

Connor gagged and struggled to do as he was told, his cheeks puffing out as he rolled the new liquid around. Kevin shoved a bucket into his hands, putting his palm on the back of Connor’s neck and coaxing him forward. Connor clutched the bucket between his knees, dropped his head, and spit.

Both Tina and Gavin recoiled, but neither was dumb enough to try and run.

“Your sensors are going haywire,” Kevin stated, lifting a cellphone-sized scanner and running it over Connor’s person. “Your system was designed to handle SAMPLES. As in a drop or two of a substance, not an entire goddamn…IS THIS TIDE DETERGENT?!”

Tina and Gavin both dropped their eyes like scolded children.

“I wath curiouth—“ Connor started.

Kevin glared flames over at Tina and Gavin, then took a dramatically deep inhale to calm himself. He faced the ceiling, keeping his hand on Connor to keep him steady.

“Oh…Celine, give me strength,” he whispered through his teeth.

Connor kept coughing, but it didn’t sound as violent anymore. Tina felt her chest unclench just a little, as she comprehended that they hadn’t, in fact, just killed Connor with their foolishness.

No, they had just poisoned him a little is all.

“God, Connor, I’m so sorry…” she stammered. “I knew that stuff was dangerous for humans, but I didn’t think—if we knew it was actually dangerous for you to ingest that, we NEVER would have suggested this.”

Connor lifted his face out of the bucket to look forlornly at her. His cheeks were flushed blue where his thirium lines were pushing at his casing from the exertion, and his eyes were watering from the pain. His tongue was hanging out of his mouth like he’d forgotten how to use it, and there was still a nauseating amount of blue blood coating his teeth, along with whatever Kevin had just told him to gargle.

“This is a rinse that neutralizes most acidic chemicals,” Kevin explained, twisting the cap back on the bottle and handing it to Connor. “I advise you to ingest two tablespoons of it to knock out any of the substance that you swallowed. The residue will get cycled through your thirium supply filtration system over the next 24 hours. You’re going to feel like ass, but at least for humans, that’s the body’s way of telling us not to do stupid shit like this again.”

Connor hunched a bit, looking embarrassed. “Thank you, Kevin. I’m sorry.”

Kevin put his hands on his hips, huffed, and then shook his head, patting Connor on the shoulder as he walked over to the wall to get Connor some napkins to clean himself up.

“You’re all right, man. You know I can’t stay mad at ya.” His warm gaze chilled as he leveled a look at Tina and Gavin. “Tina, I expected better from you. And Reed…you keep finding ways to move further up on my shit list.”

“Hey,” Gavin frowned. “I’m a sergeant at this station. I outrank you. You can’t talk to—“

Kevin took one step forward. Gavin and Tina immediately took a step backward. Kevin eyed them, then snorted at their reaction.

“That’s what I thought. Now make like a bee and buzz off, you turkeys.”

Tina nodded gratefully, heading for the door. “Okay, yep, we’re going. Sorry. Connor, again, I’m so sorry—“

Connor gave her a meek wave from his seat. “It’s not your fault, Tina. It was mine. I should have known better—“

Gavin walked backwards to the doorway, getting some of his bravery back now that they were leaving.

“So are we bees or turkeys, doc? I’m confused.”

“OUT!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a Part 2 at some point in this fic.


	7. Hypothermia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stevens family's quiet, snowy night in gets interrupted by a confused, half-frozen Connor showing up on their doorstep. Janet and Oliver do what they can to help stabilize their friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another WIP that just wasn't meant to be. This was originally an alternate take on “Connor gets caught in a snowstorm and ends up in a miserable state on a friend’s doorstep,” that was chapter one. Only this time, he’s disoriented and it’s not clear what happened. Again, not sure why this one never really went anywhere, but may it live here in its incomplete state instead of the dusty corners of my hard drive.

The first heavy snow of winter was gripping Detroit tonight, and for the past hour, Janet Stevens had been watching the white grow steep on the window sills, listening to the wind moan across the outside of the house. Bonny had repeatedly pointed out that there was no way she was going to have school tomorrow with this much snow falling, but that hadn’t gotten her out of doing her homework.

She was probably right, but Janet wasn’t going to admit that to her.

So now it was bedtime, and while Oliver got their daughter in bed and tucked in, Janet sat downstairs at the kitchen table, reviewing Bonny’s completed homework while her mother chatted at her over the video screen. Carla was talking animatedly about her day, while Janet skimmed over Bonny’s multiplication tables.

“—every year, you’d think people had never seen snow before,” she was going on. “It was practically a war zone at the grocery store. Everybody there for milk and bread, milk and bread, trampling each other like it was the end of days!”

Janet smirked, glancing at the tablet screen. “So what were you doing at the grocery store?”

Carla paused, opening and closing her mouth a few times before going deadpan. “I was…Okay, look, missy, I was innocently there to get some eggs and cake mix, and I figured…while I was there…”

“You’d get some milk and bread?” Janet said, raising an eyebrow.

Carla chuckled. “I don’t know, honey, you go into a grocery store and see people in a frenzy…the goblin brain takes over and you can’t help but join in.”

“Hence why I didn’t even bother,” Janet remarked, closing Bonny’s math book. “We are all set to be snowed in for a week if it comes to it.”

“Oh don’t even speak that out loud…”

Janet snorted, then paused when she heard a knock on the door. On the screen, Carla saw her expression change.

“What is it?”

“Someone’s at the door.”

“At this hour? In this mess?” Carla narrowed her eyes. “It’s just the wind…”

The doorbell chimed. Janet frowned, standing up.

“Wind doesn’t ring doorbells…Hey, I’ll call you back later, okay?”

“Hmph, well, all right. You three stay warm, you hear?”

“Uh huh. Night, Mom.”

“Night, chickie. Love you.”

“Love you too.” Janet ended the call, stepping away from the kitchen table.

The dining room opened to a short hallway that led to the front door, and the stairs to the second floor angled down to the same spot. She glanced from the door to the stairs, where Oliver was peering out of Bonny’s darkened room. He stepped out and slowly closed their daughter’s door.

“Who on Earth could that be?” he asked quietly, tiptoeing down the stairs to join her.

Janet shrugged and flipped on the light to illuminate the front step. She found part of the window beside the door not covered in snow and squinted through to get a visual. As soon as she recognized the huddled figure, she was unlocking the door and twisting the knob.

“Oh my God…It’s Connor.”

“What?” Oliver’s tiptoeing turned into full steps as he came down the rest of the stairs.

Janet yanked the door open, and a blast of icy wind cut into the house. It stabbed like a thousand knives at her exposed arms and feet, and her t-shirt and sweatpants did little to protect the rest of her.

Outside, standing with locked knees on the front step, Connor didn’t raise his head to look at either of them…didn’t appear to realize that the door had opened at all. He just stood there, covered in snow and with an LED burning red.

“Jesus—Connor, get in here!” Janet reached out and hooked her arm around his elbow, dragging him into the house.

Connor stumbled but obediently came into the house at her pull. Oliver swept up behind her and closed the door again as soon as they were inside. Janet grabbed Connor by the shoulders, planting herself in front of him and bending over to look him in the downcast eyes.

“Connor? Hey…hey, can you look at me? Ollie, he’s freezing—Connor, can you hear me?” she asked, moving her hands from his shoulders to the sides of his neck, giving him a little shake.

She nudged his head upward, trying to corral his eyes to look at her, but his expression was blank. His skin program was glitching and thinning from the abuse of the snow and the cold, and she could feel cold plastic under her hands. He wasn’t wearing appropriate clothes to be out in this weather, just the same grey jacket and jeans that he always wore. It was all soaked through where the first layer of snow had melted on contact. More snow had packed on over top of it.

“What’s wrong with him?” Oliver asked, keeping his hands raised where he stood behind Connor, in case the android collapsed.

It wasn’t an overreaction; Connor looked ready to drop.

Janet stayed in his line of sight, shaking her head. “I don’t know…Connor?” Still getting no reaction, she changed tactics, her posture straightening slightly. “RK800, respond.”

Connor hissed in a sharp inhale, taking a mechanical step backward from her. “N…Nhn…”

Oliver gently put his hands against Connor’s back to stabilize him, but the contact had the opposite effect. Connor yelped and jumped away from the touch, smacking his shoulder into the nearby wall and knocking a framed picture off the narrow table by the entryway. He pivoted on one foot and grabbed blindly at the wall for balance, eyes pointed to the middle distance by the stairs.

“Whoa, okay…” Janet forced calm into her voice. “Don’t touch him. I don’t…think he knows where he is or who we are.”

Oliver kept his hands in front of him, ready to grab in case Connor fell, but he didn’t try to touch their ailing friend again. “Okay…What do we do? What’s wrong with him?”

Janet took a moment, looking Connor up and down. “I don’t see any blood. I don’t think he’s been hurt. But it looks like he’s been outside for a while…Exposure has probably done some damage. We need to warm him up.”

“Without touching him?” Oliver asked incredulously.

“Go get some dry clothes and some towels,” Janet suggested. “I’ll see if I can reach him.”

“Janet…” Oliver started in concern.

“I’ll be fine. Go.”

He hesitated, then touched her arm and headed back up the stairs to their bedroom. Janet positioned herself in front of Connor, holding her hands in plain view.

“Connor. It’s Janet. Janet Stevens. You’re at our house. You’re safe. Do you understand that?” she enunciated each word, keeping a careful distance from him.

Connor blinked slowly, and his eyelids seemed to struggle through the motion, like his eyes had partially frozen open. Janet’s chest ached at the state of him. The cold was absolutely wrecking him, and although he was still somewhat mobile, he was clearly not lucid. The extreme temperature outside had already compromised his systems. Warming measures needed to be taken immediately…She just had to help him understand that.

Unfortunately, she recognized that thousand yard stare in his eyes, and she knew that wherever he was right then, it was going to be Hell trying to pull him out.

“You’re safe,” she repeated. “I’m Janet. Can you look at me? I’m Bonny’s mom. You know Bonny. Think about Bonny.”

“Bn…Bnee…” Connor’s gaze remained aimed in Janet’s direction, but his stare continued through her.

She nodded patiently. “This is Bonny’s house. You’ve been here before, remember? Do you see the staircase?”

Connor painstakingly shifted his eyes toward the stairs past Janet’s shoulder, hardly focusing at all, but there was effort there. He was trying.

“That’s right,” she encouraged. “You know this place. This is a safe place. You’re safe with us here, I promise. Do you know where you are?”

A shudder passed visibly across his entire frame, and Connor’s jaw worked to loosen the frozen joints there.

“Bonny’s…house…” He slowly tracked his gaze from the staircase to Janet’s face.

Recognition was slower than she liked, but it came at its own pace, bringing a weak light to his dull eyes. She smiled for him.

“Janet…” he struggled to speak.

She nodded. “Yes, very good.” She noted the pulsing red of his LED. “Connor, can you run a self diagnostic?”

“Nhn…” He grimaced, squinting his eyes closed with effort as he tried to run the program. “Nn…C-can’t…” he wheezed.

“That’s all right,” she assured, seeing him starting to panic. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it.”

“C-Cold…” he ground out, leaning heavily against the wall.

He wrapped his arms around himself, and his knees wobbled with the strain of remaining on his feet. Janet took a slow step closer.

“Yes. We need to warm you up—“

“Hurtsss…”

“Hurts? What hurts?” she asked, moving close enough to touch now but refraining from reaching for him. “Are you injured?”

“Nno…Cold…hurts…” He flinched as he admitted to it, curling into himself slightly. “C-Couldn’t finnnnd the…emerrrgency exit…”

Janet frowned and heard Oliver coming back down the stairs. Connor’s gaze snapped from Janet to the incoming Oliver. His eyes widened as he startled, pressing back against the wall hard enough to make the drywall creak.

“Don’t—“ he pleaded brokenly.

“Connor, hey,” Oliver said softly, keeping a cautious distance. “We just want to help, buddy.”

“Couldn’t…couldn’t find the—“ Connor’s knees began to buckle.

“Oliver—“ Janet warned.

“…emerg—“ Connor’s eyes slid closed, and he slid down the wall in a dead faint.

Oliver was immediately dropping the towels and clothes on the stairs, reaching out to stop his fall. Janet got to him first and managed to get her hands on him, slowing his descent to the floor. She eased him down, and Oliver got on his other side, holding his head steady until he was lying on the carpet.

Janet noted the steadily cycling red of his LED and the short, shuddering breaths making his chest hitch.

“Emergency stasis has kicked on,” she explained. “I’m betting he’ll be out until his core temperature rises enough for his systems to resume functioning normally.”

She popped out of her kneel, leaving Oliver to hold their unconscious friend.

“Then let’s warm him up,” Oliver concluded simply.

Janet nodded and retrieved the dropped towels and clothes. Oliver carefully moved one arm under Connor’s knees, the other going around his back. He gathered up the limp body and slowly stood, groaning slightly at the weight of him. Connor’s head lolled back, hanging over Oliver’s arm and baring his throat long. Janet grimaced at the limpness of him and headed into the living room.

“Take him to the guest room.”

She led the way to the guest room on the other side of the living room and flipped on the light inside. The room was only a guest room because it had a bed in it. Everything else in the room was a mix of storage tubs and Oliver’s photography equipment. Janet made sure the path was clear and stepped aside.

Oliver turned sideways to carry Connor through the doorway, and it was three shuffling steps to the bed. Janet pulled back the top quilt and tugged it down to the footboard, dumping the towels and clothes there as well.

“Sit him up. We need to get him out of the wet clothes and into some dry ones,” she instructed.

“Right,” Oliver said through clenched teeth as he deposited Connor in a slumped upright position on the side of the bed.

Connor immediately teetered to the side, and Oliver kept a hand on him. Stasis had left all of Connor’s joints loose, so he was effectively a big plastic noodle sitting on the bed. The two of them quickly maneuvered him out of the wet clothes and into some spare dry ones before easing him down on his back on the mattress. Oliver piled the quilt on top of him, and Janet went to fetch some hot water bottles to help his system to warm up.

All thoughts of a quiet, snowed in evening had just gone out the window, and this was going to be a long night.


	8. Stoic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a car accident, Connor is determined to check out of the android care facility early, against technicians' advice, to be with Hank at the human hospital. Unfortunately, Connor is in worse shape than he wants to admit. Fortunately Julia is there to help, but she's going to complain the whole time.

He wasn’t in a condition to leave the android care facility. Connor knew that. He was all too aware of that every time he attempted to move. His own diagnostic system was aggressively sending protest messages across his HUD in red, providing a scrolling list of the damage that he had sustained. But he continued to push that aside. He needed to leave. He needed to go.

The vehicular collision had involved a public transit bus losing control and rearending Hank’s Oldsmobile at a red light, causing Hank’s car to lurch forward into the back of the semi trailer ahead of them at the intersection. In a rare occurrence, Connor had been the one driving that morning, and for that, he was grateful.

The air bag on the driver’s side had failed to deploy, causing his chest to slam into the steering wheel. The driver’s side seatbelt also did not prevent him from lurching forward, some manufacturing defect not locking the belt on impact. This had resulted in, among other things, multiple fractures to Connor’s internal casing and structural components…the android equivalent of ribs and spinal column. Several biocomponents had sustained slight damage amounting to what was essentially minor bruising, though no thirium loss or internal bleeding had been detected. His neck was strained from the whiplash, and the longer that he sat where he was, the more intense and throbbing the pain became throughout his body.

Still, he was grateful that it was him and not Hank driving, as the passenger side air bag and seatbelt had worked properly, sparing Hank serious and potentially life threatening injuries. Still, Hank had been unconscious after the collision, and he had been taken in a human ambulance to the nearest hospital. Connor had managed to run a general scan on his body; injuries were minor but would require medical assistance. That had pacified Connor’s primary concern. His secondary concern had then taken the forefront of his focus as the technicians had arrived to take him to an android care facility.

Car accidents like this were likely a trigger for Hank’s past trauma. Connor didn’t want Hank to wake up alone in a hospital after a car accident, worrying whether Connor had survived or if…

No, Connor needed to be there. He needed to be with Hank when he woke up, to make sure that Hank knew that Connor was okay. Otherwise he might become distressed, and that would cause an adverse health effect.

Connor could endure this mounting agony through his system in order to comfort his friend. He could do that. He had already signed the discharge papers, against the technician’s advice, and all he had to do now was finish getting dressed, get a taxi to take him to the hospital, and find Hank. Then he could rest. Then he could focus on his healing program. But until then, he just needed…He just…he just had to figure out—

“Arm,” jogged him out of his thought spiral.

Connor blinked and logged back into his current reality. He had managed to situate himself in a lean against the facility ER bed, but movement beyond that had made his vision tunnel. So he had stopped moving. Artificial light was filling the emergency room, but the noise and the movement throughout the rest of the ER had been blocked by pale green curtain. It had been pulled around the small bay where he had been treated, providing a privacy screen separating him from other ER patients.

“Arm,” he parroted back dully.

In front of him, Julia was holding a white t-shirt and looking at him with concern.

“—can you manage that?” she was saying.

For a beat, Connor just stared at her. He...remembered speaking to a technician about being discharged…He…Yes, he did remember Julia arriving and…speaking to him…but his system was not recalling his short term memory the way it should…It felt foggy.

“Hey,” Julia said lightly, leaning more into his line of sight. “You okay? I…Connor, maybe you should reconsider and stay for more treatment—“

Connor straightened slightly, masking a grimace as the motion stretched the damaged synthetic musculature surrounding his neck.

“No,” he replied dryly. “I need to—Hank is going to need me.”

She eyed him, looking like she wanted to argue. Connor stared back at her firmly, and after a beat, she sighed in resignation.

“Okay,” she said. “Then lift your arm so we can get this shirt on you.”

She may as well have asked him to lift the entire building around them. Connor set his jaw and looked down at himself. The technicians had cut away and presumably discarded his shirt when they initially brought him into the ER, providing this white t-shirt as a replacement. Unfortunately, that exposed all of the gauze and bandage wrapping around his chest, compressing the damage in his torso, along with exposing all of the dark bruising around the damage points, where thirium from broken minor lines had collected under his casing. Fortunately, they had not found it necessary to remove his pants or shoes, so this humiliating circumstance was limited to just the shirt.

He took a bracing breath and then exhaled, shakily lifting his right arm from his side.

He didn’t get far.

Mercifully, Julia was quick. She bunched up the shirt and caught his weak arm through one of the sleeve holes, pushing the fabric up his arm to his shoulder. His arm dropped back to his side, and he winced as the soreness radiated up his arm, through his shoulder, and into his chest where the rest of the pain was residing.

In a second, fluid motion, Julia pulled the shirt over his head and helped him find the head hole. He hissed at the slight jostling, and she removed her touch, hovering in front of him instead.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she apologized.

“I’m fine,” he said through his teeth. “Just get the other arm—Please.”

She helped him bend his other arm at the elbow, as far as he could stand it, in order to thread his arm through the remaining sleeve. More warnings flared across his HUD, staining his vision red as the discomfort boiled up his arm and through his shoulder. He closed his eyes, forcing his expression to stay smooth and not betray how painful this was.

He needed to be strong right now. He needed to be okay, to look okay for Hank. Hank had to be reliving his worst trauma right now. If Connor just being there and showing him that he was okay would in any way help to mitigate that, then Connor had to do it. He could do this. He could force down the small muscle spasms causing his frame to tremble. He could straighten his posture and walk out of here. He could get in a taxi…get in another…another car…

Anxiety abruptly pooled across his raw circuits at the concept of getting into another car so soon after being in a car accident, and his hands involuntarily clenched around the siding of the bed. He paused and carefully unclenched his hands. He was starting to feel hot, despite his internal temperature reading showing as stable. His stress levels were rising, however, against his composed outward expression.

He only barely felt Julia tug down the hem of his shirt the rest of the way for him, and then her cool hands were being placed on either side of his face.

Connor opened his eyes to see her staring at him in serious concern. She didn’t have to say it, but he nodded slowly in response anyway. Her brow pinched with a small frown, and he again loosened his tight grip on the bed behind him. The coolness of her hands felt nice, and her thumbs lightly rubbed against his cheeks comfortingly.

He lifted his hands and wrapped them around her wrists loosely, staring at her firmly.

“I’m fine.”

Julia held his gaze for a dubious moment, then sighed and let him remove her hands.

“You’re an idiot,” she murmured, picking up a foam neck brace from the bed beside him.

Connor snorted dryly at her comment, then frowned at the brace in her hands.

“I don’t need that.”

“Connor,” Julia huffed, glaring at him. “What you need is a swift kick in the pants for trying to leave the facility so soon. You’re hurt, you need—“

“What I need is to be with Hank. He’s going to be upset if he wakes up and I’m not there—“

“Then if you’re going to be a dumbass, don’t try to win the dumbass of the year award at least,” she said, lifting the brace. “Please, just wear this. It’ll take some of the strain off your neck and it won’t hurt as much.”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“You…” Words seemed to fail her, and she looked like she wanted to shake him out of frustration.

In lieu of that, given the circumstances, she just silently fumed and angrily poked him in the knee. It was arguably one of the few points in his body that didn’t hurt; however, she did poke him hard enough to activate his leg’s reflexive kick, similar to a human’s reflex response.

They both paused and glanced down at his knee, then back at each other. It was enough to pop some of the tension in the room, and Connor finally took a good look at Julia. She looked frazzled, and there was a slight, anxious tremor to her hands.

She was scared too. Today had scared her, and he hadn’t even had the opportunity to hide the damage from her. She’d seen all of it.

While he processed that, she stared back at him, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

“You…impossible man,” she huffed, lifting the collar again. “Please wear this. Hank is not going to be fooled into believing that you are unscathed from this accident, and that’s okay. You’re alive; that’s what matters. So…please…be as painlessly alive as you can, okay? For me?”

Connor hesitated, then gave in. “…Fine.”

Julia deflated in relief. “Fine.”

“I said fine.”

“Well…fine!” Julia snorted, helping him wrap the supportive collar around his neck.

He let her fasten it in the back, wiggling it a bit to test the fit, and the effect was immediate relief. He tried not to let it show too much, out of his sense of pride, but she seemed to spot it anyway.

“Uh huh?” she teased, eyebrows raised.

Connor made a face at her, movingly gingerly to test his mobility. “Shut up.”

She mocked zipping her lips shut, picking up his jacket from the bed as well. “You want to try to get this back on?”

“God, no,” he groaned, carefully standing on his own away from the bed.

Everything ached, but his balance felt sound. Julia stepped aside, offering an arm in case he needed support. He gave her a grateful look but didn’t take her up on it.

“I called Person,” she said. “She’s going to give us a ride to the hospital, so you don’t have to, y’know, ride in some random taxi after…you know…”

Connor relaxed a bit, looking at her appreciatively. “Thank you, Julia.”

Some color touched her cheeks, and she chuckled, pulling open the curtain for them to leave.

He was relieved to find that walking wasn’t as bad as his system was trying to tell him it was. It was just everything from the waist up that was causing him pain. Julia walked alongside him, carrying his jacket and his discharge papers for him as they approached the desk to check out.

“You said ‘us’?” Connor started. “You’re going to the hospital too?”

“You’re not the only one worried about Hank,” she tutted. “And…y’know, I just…want to make sure you don’t…like…collapse outside the hospital or something…”

“Oh…Thank…you?” he started, looking at her with a grin.

Julia handed over the paperwork to the desk worker, turned, and gave him a flat look.

“Because you’re an idiot.”

Connor snorted and pointed at her. “There it is.”

She nodded. “There it is. Also, I asked a technician for a cold compress, so here,” she handed it to him. “It’s supposed to help with the discomfort.”

Connor gratefully took the cold brick, tentatively holding it to his midsection over the worst of the damage. His sensors started to immediately focus on the cold external temperature instead of the heated soreness inside his body, and the relief was strong.

“You’re wonderful,” he exhaled.

“I know…C’mon, Person’s waiting.”


	9. Forced Mutism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor survives the attempt on his life. Now he just has to survive the healing process. Person and Hank are there to make sure he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from ChelConnorVictorCas613: sequel to last year's "Whumptober at the DPD" chapter 6: Dragged Away.
> 
> For context, "Dragged Away" was about two baddies wrapping chains around Connor's neck and dragging him behind their truck. They didn't make it far before Person and Wilson stopped them, but the damage was still done.

_Warning…multiple systems damaged…_

_Multiple fractures to external casing detected…_

_Thirium level 92 percent…_

_Stress level 76 percent…_

_Internal temperature 100.1 degrees Fahrenheit…_

_Voice modulator offline…_

It was all Connor could do to keep dismissing the scrolling list of text, summarizing all the ways that his body had been damaged during the altercation. The red warnings were cluttering his HUD and making it nearly impossible to see Person kneeling in front of him.

He couldn’t speak. Even if his voice modulator had been online…the trauma to his neck and throat had done so much damage that his hardware wasn’t even responding. His vision was experiencing periods of static, and his other external sensors for sound were also sporadically glitching.

His sensors tuned to touch, however, were on fire…of course they were.

The hot, angry claws of pain had dug themselves in deep around his throat, across his back, and over his knees. He could taste thirium in his mouth where he had coughed it up. The concrete of the street was hard and unyielding underneath him, and he couldn’t move or do anything about it. His system was providing feedback on his increasing internal temperature, but he was detecting tremors in his limbs associated with warming measures deployed against environmental cold.

He felt cold…and in pain and…scared.

A flicker of white light zagged across his vision, causing him to recoil and involuntarily groan in pain. The sound came out harsh and grating and staticked, and more thirium filled his mouth with a stringent taste.

“Systems are stable,” a voice was saying nearby. “He’s safe for transport, but I want him on a backboard. You, keep him awake if you can.”

“Connor?” Person.

Fleeting relief swamped his sensors, and he tried to keep clearing the warning text in order to see her. He managed to clear his vision enough to see an emergency technician instead. The man had buzz cut red hair and a heavily freckled face around brown eyes. He was pocketing his penlight, presumably the source of the painful light in his eyes moments earlier. The patch on his uniform read “Hicks.”

Then there was Person, leaning around Hicks. The front of her police uniform was stained blue, and he could smell her scent in the jacket draped over him. She carefully put a hand on his shoulder, moved her hand to his hair, then back to his shoulder.

“Hey,” she said gently. “Connor, stay awake for me, buddy, okay? We’re gonna get you to the facility, and they’re going to fix you right up. I promise. Okay?”

Connor could do little else but blink in response.

_Emergency stasis recommended…_

_< Initiate>_

_< Override>_

He wanted to go under. He didn’t want to keep feeling this agony across his damaged circuits and biocomponents…but she was asking him to stay awake…And the fear of not waking up again was more powerful than the pain, so he locked his eyes on her and tried to fight it.

_< Override>_

Another technician moved behind Person, carrying a broad, flat red backboard, and the two technicians situated it at Connor’s side, preparing to move him.

“On three,” the other technician stated, and Connor felt hands on him.

Person’s was one of those sets of hands, and he felt another swell of relief at her familiar touch.

“One. Two. Three!”

In one swift movement, he was lifted up and moved sideways onto the backboard. Agony splintered across his circuitry, lighting his entire back and neck on fire. He cried out at the sensation, and his synthetic vocal chords misfired in trying to vocalize. That only added to the pain overwhelming his system, and his eyes blurred with responsive tears.

“Connor!” Person moved into his line of sight again, concern thick on her face. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

The firm, flat surface of the backboard was only a minor improvement from the rough, flat concrete of the road below him. Even as his system struggled to sluggishly comprehend what had just happened, he felt more hands on him…

Securing a thick brace around his neck, immobilizing his spinal structure…

Fastening straps across his legs, hips, and torso to keep him stable on the backboard…

Placing a high efficiency grade monitor against his chest to scan his systems for the technicians to see the full extent of the damage.

“Up on three,” the same technician from before was saying. “One. Two. Three!”

Vertigo turned his stomach as the two technicians and Person collectively raised the backboard with him on it and transferred him to a gurney. The technicians hastily set about lifting the gurney and rolling it into the back of the ambulance.

“Initiate emergency stasis,” one technician said.

“Connor?” Person sounded farther away than he wanted her to be.

“Where’s he going?” There was Wilson, sounding equally far away.

“Detroit Alpha,” the technician reported.

A hand was then touching the panel on the side of Connor’s neck, finding the spot that would externally initiate an emergency stasis across his entire system.

_Stress level 87 percent…_

_Thirium level holding stable…_

_Internal temperature 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit...Cooling measures recommended…_

_Trauma to cranial—_

**INITIATING EMERGENCY STASIS.**

“Nhn…” Connor gargled on wires and blood, unable to fight the external override.

“We’ll meet you there!” Wilson called out.

“I want to come with you all,” Person was arguing.

“Officers, there’s—“

**EMERGENCY STASIS ACTIVATED.**

**..:--X--:..**

An indeterminate amount of time passed before the blackness of emergency stasis began to lift.

His consciousness was ringing with the silence of no warnings or alerts to his system. For a blissful moment, he let that silence stretch, knowing that as soon as his system came fully online again, the pain would follow.

The first sensors to come back online were his audio receptors, and the first thing he heard was Hank’s voice.

“—and he made clear his intentions by brandishing the shotgun in his hands. ‘I was born on this mountain,’ he loudly declared. ‘I have lived all of my seventy-four years on this mountain. It is on this mountain that I will die, and it is under this mountain that I will rest for eternity afterward.’ The others gathered around all exchanged resigned looks. For they all knew that once old man Fickert had made up his mind, there was no unmaking it. Volcano or not. They—Connor?”

The sound of his voice changed as he stopped…reading? Had he been reading aloud?

Connor blinked, only then realizing that his eyes had already opened themselves. His dark vision was slowly clearing, and his optical units slowly refocused and took note of his surroundings.

The plain, sterile walls of the private facility room came into focus around him. It was dimly lit, and the noise level was mercifully low thanks to the closed door that led to the hallway. The glow of various monitoring equipment cast weak shadows across the blanket that covered most of him from the mid-chest down. The television on the wall was turned off, and Hank was sitting in an uncomfortable looking plastic chair pulled up to Connor’s bedside.

It looked like he had scooted himself as close as he could get, taking advantage of the yellow light of a lamp on the side table to read from. The book in his hands was paperback and worn so much that Connor couldn’t read the title, and anyway he was distracted by the wall of concern that covered every bit of Hank’s face. He looked mixed parts of concerned, exhausted, and scared, and Connor hated that he was the reason for his friend to look that way.

He swallowed reflexively and mercifully didn’t taste thirium anymore. He struggled to speak.

“Hn—“ Static crackled through his mouth, and a sharp sting needled down his throat. He cut off with a hiss, his head sinking deeper into the pillows beneath it.

“Hey, shh, no, don’t try to speak,” Hank said, closing the book and casting it aside.

He stood up out of the chair to move even closer, placing a big, warm hand on Connor’s shoulder. More of his sensors were firing back up now, and the ache across his entire body was making itself more unavoidably known. Connor grimaced and closed his eyes against it, tension starting to coil through his limbs as the ache grew.

“Easy…Easy,” Hank said softly. “You’re stable. You’re safe, and your systems are stable. They repaired everything. You’re just recalibrating all your new parts right now, and—“

Connor groaned, helpless against the relentless pangs of recalibration.

“—Yeah, I know, it sucks ass,” Hank soothed, placing a hand on the top of Connor’s head, shifting his fingers gently through his hair in a comforting manner. “But I’m right here, son. I’m with you.”

Connor looked up at him, finding a calming anchor in his demeanor, but he knew that his own expression was pinched tight with discomfort and that his eyes were wide with distress. He couldn’t do anything about it…He felt helpless…and everything felt so cluttered in his head that he couldn’t access his system diagnostic reports.

“Your voice thing is still offline,” Hank informed slowly, likely understanding that Connor not knowing his own condition would be stressing him out. “The technicians here have put a safety block on your systems, keeping your voice offline and most of your motor functions offline to…to keep you still while everything calibrates.”

Connor turned his attention inward, sending a few test signals throughout his body. Nothing responded. Not a finger twitched or a toe moved, and panic ratcheted up his chest.

“Hey, hey, easy,” Hank chastised lightly, picking up Connor’s arm at his side and making room to sit himself on the side of the bed near Connor’s hip.

He carefully held Connor’s wrist and hand in both of his own hands, and Connor tried to redirect his sensors away from the twinges and needles of pain across his body…focusing instead on Hank holding his hand, rubbing his thumb across Connor’s wrist, the solid warmth of his presence.

Hank gave him a reassuring smile, glancing up at the monitors on the wall above the bed. He squinted slightly as he read them, then raised his eyebrows and looked back at Connor.

“Everything looks good, s’far as I can tell. Thirium levels are solid. Temperature readings are normal. Just your damn stress level is too high for my comfort, so let’s work on that, okay?” he said soothingly. “Take some steadying breaths, kiddo. You’re all right.”

Connor struggled to comply, and Hank just kept moving his thumb back and forth across the back of Connor’s wrist methodically. Connor’s ventilation biocomponents hitched, but he managed to take a deeper breath than before…what humans would typically classify as a sigh.

Hank’s smile relaxed a little as Connor repeated the motion a few times.

“There you go,” he praised, glancing at the monitors again and back to Connor. “Easy peasy.”

While Connor continued to gradually calm his stress levels, Hank gave him some time. He fiddled with the blankets covering Connor, fixed a few creases in the collar of Connor’s patient gown, and poked at the pillow under his head to make sure it was supporting him enough.

“Warm enough?” he finally asked. “They left this tube of gel stuff here too for in case you woke up with dry mouth from the thirium transfusion tubes. Got some thirisol analgesic cream stuff too if anything starts to hurting too bad.”

Hank was fretting, but it was more out of nerves than the gravity of Connor’s mending condition, so Connor let him fret without fighting him. There was a feeling of relief to it that helped lower his own stress levels. Hank was here. Hank was with him. Hank was going to take care of him. Hank meant that he was safe.

Almost all of his systems had fully rebooted before he noticed Person was there too.

She was folded up into herself on a barely-cushioned green couch. It looked as though she had fallen asleep sitting up and someone, likely Hank, had maneuvered her down onto her side to let her sleep more comfortably. Hank’s coat was spread across her, and in her sleep she had pulled it close around her. She was still deeply asleep.

“You all had quite a day, huh?” Hank said, noting that Connor had found her with his eyes. “She’s okay too, just rattled and worried about you…Rumor has it they called in backup to take those two dirtbags into custody because they didn’t want to leave them alone with her, for fear of her breaking all the bones in their bodies…Now, I’m not saying I would condone such a thing but…”

Connor frowned, brow knitting as he looked to Hank.

Hank lifted his shoulders. “I’m just saying...Braver men than me got between her and them. I’m just being honest here…She is terrifying sometimes.”

Connor smirked, raising his eyebrows in agreement. Hank snickered at him and reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone and reading the notifications on the screen.

“The whole damn squad is blowing up my phone asking about you. They’re chomping at the bit to see you as soon as you feel up to it.”

A boost of something positive moved across his coding, momentarily numbing some of the pervasive aching. The idea of seeing the team did sound good…but even better sounding was to just maintain this quiet in the room. He honestly wasn’t up to any more visitors at the moment, but it was a relief to know that they were there whenever he wanted them. Right now, however, he just wanted more of this calm.

His eyes drifted to the worn out old book in the chair that Hank had vacated. Hank tracked his gaze and snorted, giving Connor’s hand a pat.

“It’s an old dime store thing that I bought years ago. It’s not a good book by any means, but,” Hank shrugged, “it’s just entertaining enough to keep me re-reading it. I can’t explain it, but I always end up reading this damn thing when I’m…needing a distraction. Guess I figured it might help you too…”

Connor blinked slowly, feeling the tug of stasis again, having already burned through his energy reserves in the short time that he’d been awake. Hank must have noticed, because he shifted in his seat.

“You, uh, you want me to keep reading it to you? Might help pass the time while you calibrate everything…if, uh, if you want.”

Still unable to speak or move, Connor blinked and lifted his eyebrows and hoped that that would be enough to communicate his response.

It was enough.

Hank chuckled and nodded his head, moving back into his seat and picking up the book again.

“You got it, son…Okay, all right, where…were we…” he mumbled, thumbing through the pages to find where he had left off. “Right, here we go…Fickert refusing to evacuate during the volcanic eruption…”

He resumed reading aloud, and Connor managed to stay awake long enough to conclude that, yes, the book was not a masterpiece by any means, but…something in the way Hank read it made it a comforting thing to listen to. He’d be sure to give Hank his full opinion on it when he woke up with a functional voice modulator, but…for now…he was content to fall asleep listening to the story.


	10. Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor had decided that being sick is horrible, and he hated feeling like such a burden to his friends as they spend the evening taking care of him while Hank is on a stakeout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBH, I just wanted to get some Bonny in here. Alternate summary: Bonny Stevens unleashes Big Sister Mode all over a helpless Connor.
> 
> Prompt from Nony: “Android flu definitely exists and Connor would one thousand percent be unlucky enough to catch it.”
> 
> Prompt from Anonymous: “connor's reaction to data's death”

Colloquially, the virus was being called Android Flu. That was an oversimplification of what it did to android internal systems…what it was currently doing to Connor’s internal systems…but as it was, Connor didn’t have the strength to care to correct those who had been calling it by the common term. So far, that included Hank, who had originally noticed that Connor had started exhibiting symptoms. It also included Kevin, the precinct technician on call at the 07, who had promptly sent Connor home with strict instructions and a software patch to help his system combat the virus. It also now included Oliver and Bonny Stevens, who Hank had for some reason recruited to check on Connor when Hank’s stakeout went late into the evening.

The virus was primarily affecting his internal temperature regulation. Currently, his diagnostic was reading at 101.2 Fahrenheit. His ventilation biocomponents had initially increased his respiration rate to counteract this, but at the same time, his system had released coolant reserves into his thirium supply. As it circulated through his body, the coolant-laced thirium had collected along the walls of his throat and nasal passages. This was resulting in sporadic fits of coughing to try and clear the irritant and in consistent congestion in his nose. Both symptoms seemed to contribute to increased thirium pressure in his cranial cavity, which added a dull, throbbing headache into the mix.

“That’s fever, cough, congestion, and headaches,” Oliver Stevens summed up, raising a finger for each symptom. “And that’s flu. That’s android flu, sorry.”

Curled up on his side on the couch in Hank’s living room, Connor groaned and pressed the side of his face further into the pillow under his head.

“It’s not—“ He was interrupted by another coughing fit, and he grimaced through it as this made his skull pound. “Don’t call it that—“

Oliver’s boyish face smiled sympathetically, holding up a small white plastic case. “Hank said the precinct tech gave you this patch to install to help scrub your system of this virus. Did you do that already?”

Connor pinched his eyes shut, feeling a shiver run across his external temperature sensors despite the heat raging through his body. Bonny, Oliver’s nine year old daughter, sprang into action, fiddling with the thin blanket that Connor had wrapped himself in. She tugged the edge of it up to his shoulder, tucking it into his sides and patting his arm.

“Your face is blue,” she informed him worriedly.

Connor cleared his throat and sniffed, neither action making a notable difference to his situation. He peered open one eye, and the little girl’s concerned face filled his entire range of vision.

“Thirium pressure is…building in my head…overheated…lines pushing to the surface to try and c-cool…” He winced, gingerly shifting from his side to his back.

It was marginally less uncomfortable.

“Yes,” he answered Oliver belatedly. “Installation is complete…The patch is…running right now.”

“Good,” Oliver chirped, setting the case on the coffee table. “While it’s doing that, me and BJ here will help you get comfy until it kicks in.”

“That’s unnecessary,” Connor argued, as Bonny insistently straightened the blanket over him again. “I don’t require additional measures…My system will correct the errors and remove the virus on its own.”

“Sure, but in the meantime, you’re going to keep feeling like crap,” Oliver pointed out.

“Let us take care of you, stupid,” Bonny said bluntly.

Connor peered open one eye at her again, finding her pouting stubbornly.

Well…It wasn’t as though he could actually stop them in his condition…so he silently surrendered to their care.

As a matter of fact, it wasn’t as though he could do anything in his condition. Even the act of walking from the taxi to the house and lying down on the couch had thoroughly exhausted him. The idea of even sitting up on the couch at the moment made him dizzy and slightly nauseated. Sumo would need to go out soon, but…maybe he could ask Oliver to do that…

Frustration brought a new heat to his face, and he stayed quiet as Oliver brought him some chilled thirium to drink and checked his temperature with an android thermal scanner. He didn’t like the reading that he got, so he brought Connor a damp cloth to put on his forehead and a cool ice bag to put against his thirium pump…which admittedly did feel nice.

Bonny was put on entertainment duty, and she had plopped herself on the floor in front of Connor, using the remote to scroll through channels for something for them to watch to pass the time. She tilted her head back at him as she found a possible selection.

“You still like Star Trek, right?”

Connor swallowed against a dry throat and blinked slowly. “Yes.”

“Then that’s what we’ll watch!” she announced, dramatically clicking on the selection.

Connor made it midway through the first act of the film before his focus started to become foggy. Even thinking straight felt like an exhausting task. He could feel the software patch making progress through his system, but it was going far slower than he would have preferred. He had never been taken down so thoroughly by something as obnoxious as a virus.

This particular strain had been making its way through the precinct androids, but none of them had said how awful it actually was. Julia had compared it more to that of a human head cold, and Zeke had actually shrugged when asked how bad it was. It was possible that Connor’s status as a prototype model had left him vulnerable to the more intense symptoms of this virus, despite being the most advanced android ever developed by Cyberlife.

Bonny kept up a running commentary on her opinion of the film as it progressed, and Connor tried to keep up…but he was so tired…Yet he wasn’t able to initiate rest mode properly. He thought he might have dozed for a few minutes here or there, but he couldn’t sleep…

He’d never felt like such a burden…so useless and helpless…He had been created to serve humans, and now two humans were having their time taken up tending to his malfunctioning self. Of course deviancy had removed his need to serve humans…but it was still hardwired into his coding and…being unable to—why was thinking coherently so difficult?!

“Oh!” Bonny suddenly exclaimed.

Connor blinked his eyes back into focus, looking at the screen. Bonny was sitting on the floor, watching through her fingers, while in the film, the antagonist was skewered on some kind of metal horizontal pole, mere feet away from Captain Picard.

What was…even happening?

…This wasn’t age appropriate…Where was Oliver?

He laboriously worked one arm free from under the blanket, reaching around to cover Bonny’s eyes with his hand. The movie continued, and soon Lieutenant Commander Data arrived on the scene to…save Picard and…save the day…

Connor found the energy reserves to pay better attention. Data was an android and a main character in this series of the franchise…He always made a point to pay extra attention whenever Data was on screen.

Data suddenly placed a transporter badge on Picard, and the captain was immediately beamed away from the decidedly dangerous situation.

“Goodbye,” Data murmured, and a countdown started in the background.

Wait…what was happening?

Data lifted a phaser toward some evil looking green column of energy and—

Connor gasped despite himself as the ship abruptly exploded…and Data with it. The film cut to another ship’s bridge, where the rest of the crew watched the explosion in horror.

Wait…no…That…He didn’t just…

His vision blurred. Connor sniffed again, and was again frustrated when his nasal passage remained blocked. He blinked to clear away the blurriness, and he felt optical cleaning fluid track down his face. He was…crying?

No, he didn’t want to be crying! He didn’t want to be crying on top of everything else going wrong today. He was already sick and feeling useless and burdensome to his friends and tired and…and now he had just seen a main character die on his favorite show? And not only a main character but…but…why that one?! Why…

“Hey…” Bonny had twisted around in her seat on the floor, finding Connor uncharacteristically upset. Her eyes widened in concern, but her voice became very soft as she spoke next. “Hey…It’s okay…It’s just a movie…”

She got up on her feet just long enough to sit on the couch in the negative space at his side where he had curled into himself. She leaned over and put her arm around his shoulder in a half hug.

And that did it. That was the final straw. Being comforted by a small child after being upset by the death of a fictional character…on top of being sick and useless and a burden to those around him. At least Data had gone out a hero…saving everyone from…from…Connor didn’t even know the circumstances of his sacrifice! He had been dozing off!

Connor raised both hands to cover his face, curling further into himself as his emotions bubbled quick and hot to the surface, and him lacking the capacity at the moment to deal with them. He shuddered as first one sob slipped out, like a kick in the chest, followed by another, until he was just crying openly into his hands as he lay on the couch.

“Shh…” Bonny tried to soothe, rubbing his back with one hand. “I know, that was sad, wasn’t it?”

Connor swallowed and coughed, groaning as it aggravated his headache. “He was my favorite character.”

Bonny was quiet, moving her hand from his back to his hair, running her fingers gently through it, like her parents would do for her when she was sick or upset.

The back door opened, and Sumo trotted back into the house, followed by Oliver.

“There we go, big guy,” Oliver was saying. “So how’d—Whoa, hey, hey, what happened?”

He hastily crossed over to the couch, as Connor forced his breathing back into a normal rhythm and fought down the emotions threatening to drown him. Bonny tucked in a little closer to Connor, looking at her father.

“The movie killed his favorite character,” she answered quietly. “It was really sad.”

Relief replaced the panic on Oliver’s face, and he relaxed, picking up the cloth that had fallen from Connor’s forehead during the commotion.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry,” he said. “Hey, Bonny, go to the bathroom and rinse this out for me, okay?”

Bonny looked stricken at the idea of leaving Connor’s side. “But—“

“Now, Bonny,” Oliver pressed.

“Fine,” Bonny huffed but gave Connor another half hug. “I’ll be right back.”

She quickly took the cloth and darted off on her mission, giving Oliver the chance to sit on the edge of the coffee table, under the pretense of checking Connor’s temperature again.

“Sorry,” Connor murmured, embarrassment compounding on the frustration and the emotional rollercoaster running through him.

“You’re okay,” Oliver assured, producing a folded paper tissue. “Here.”

Connor gratefully took the tissue and wiped the remaining tears away. Taking a chance, he then tried to blow his nose…finally getting some results as the software patch had helped break up the congestion lodged there. Still, he grimaced and folded up the tissue, tossing it on the coffee table to be dealt with later.

Oliver offered a smile, reaching out and giving his shoulder a comforting squeeze, as Bonny came tearing back into the living room with the freshly dampened towel.

“Thanks, BJ,” Oliver tutted, folding the cloth and giving it to Connor. “How about we stick to something a little more cheerful for the rest of the evening, eh?”

“I’m on it!” Bonny grabbed at the remote, hastily scrolling for the next movie while Oliver went into the kitchen.

Connor coughed again, noting that the action was less painful this time. He replaced the cool, damp cloth on his forehead again, as a new wave of exhaustion pushed him into the cushions of the couch.

“Sorry,” he apologized again, “for being such a burden.”

Bonny abruptly sat herself down beside him again, looking him seriously in the eye.

“You are not a burden,” she said firmly. “You’re family, and I love you. And we take care of the people we love. I just want to make you feel better, so deal with it!”

From the kitchen came Oliver’s “What she said!”

“Now,” Bonny said, just as seriously. “Princess and the Frog…or The Little Mermaid?”

Connor eyed her, a ball of warm affection knotting in his chest against the overheating.

“…Princess and the Frog.”

Bonny nodded sagely. “Good choice.”

She started to turn, then paused, turned back around, and kissed him on the cheek.

“We’re gonna make you all better,” she promised, turning back toward the television and selecting the movie.

Connor swallowed, wiping his eyes a final time as his system finally began to properly isolate and remove the virus. He watched Bonny for a moment, then spied Oliver keeping an eye on them. Oliver gave him a wink, sipping at a can of soda. Connor relaxed at that, his poor frayed nerves relenting under the strain of the day, and he surrendered voluntarily to his friends’ care this time.

“Thank you.”


	11. Exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first few hours of being a father, Hank feels like he's in a bubble.

Two years of trying. Nine months of pregnancy. Sixteen hours of labor. Now, he was here.

Cole Henry Anderson was born at 4:17 pm, and Hank was in love.

He was in love with this squirmy, pink, tiny little human who had come screaming into their lives just hours ago.

He was in love with Nell in more ways than he could articulate. What she had just gone through, what he had just watched her do…She was a goddess. That was all there was to it.

The Anderson family of three occupied the private hospital room, which was finally quiet after hours of noise. They hadn’t even told anyone yet. Nell had been having bouts of false labor for days before this. When contractions had started this time, they had kinda figured it would be the same.

He should start calling people. First her parents, then his, then…who else?

He couldn’t think straight. There was some kind of bubble that had swallowed up this hospital room. Nothing existed outside of it. He didn’t care about anything outside this bubble, this room. His entire world was in this bubble, and that was all that mattered.

Their little peanut was sleeping now, swaddled in a hospital blanket and nestled in the bassinet next to Nell’s bed. Nell was lying on her side, curled toward the bassinet, fighting sleep just to watch their baby. Her blond hair was matted with dried sweat, and her eyelids looked heavy against her efforts to stay awake.

“You’re staring again,” she murmured, slowly lifting her eyes to meet his.

Hank smiled, crossing over to her and leaning down, kissing her on the temple. “You were dozing off again.”

“Was not,” she grinned. “I’m not tired.”

Hank smiled wider, tilting his head at her with a sly look. “Of course you’re not. Why in the world would you feel tired right now?”

She crinkled her nose against a smile, swatting at his arm lightly. He chuckled and bent closer toward her, gently putting his arms around her shoulders and kissing her properly on the lips.

There wasn’t a word for this level of love and happiness. It couldn’t be described. He just felt…complete…in every sense of the word. If she asked him to, he could have sprouted wings and flown around the room.

“You’re amazing,” he whispered, kissing her again.

Nell grinned into the kiss. “You’re not too shabby yourself.”

“No, I mean it.” He withdrew enough to look her in the eyes. “I mean you…you had a baby.”

She eyed him, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know. I was there.”

Hank snorted and looked over at Cole, sleeping soundly. He reached out a hand and very gently touched the end of the blanket where the newborn’s toes would be.

“He’s perfect,” he whispered.

“He is,” Nell agreed, sitting up on her elbow to look at their baby at a better angle.

“You’re incredible,” he stated, looking at her in wonder.

“I am,” she tutted, wincing slightly as she mistakenly tried to move her sore body.

“And you’re exhausted,” he said, lowering his chin at her.

She grimaced as she settled back down on her side.

“I can get more ice packs…or heating pads…whichever…both?” he offered, the stupid level of joy in the room only dampened by the residual pain and soreness that she was dealing with.

“I’m okay,” she said, despite the ginger way she was holding herself.

Hank gave her a dubious look, resting a hand on her hip. “Let me help, babe. You just did all the hard work. You’ve been doing all the hard work for nine months. Let me do something.”

Nell smiled warmly at him, then gave the kind of sigh that he recognized as one of surrender. He knew Nell was reluctant to ask for any kind of help with anything. Be it fixing a computer or moving a couch or…having a baby…She was always so goddamn stubborn and determined to do everything herself. Well, not this time. He’d watched her suffer and power through the better part of the last day. She was going to get some pampering now, whether she admitted to needing it or not.

“I’ve got all the ice packs and heating pads that I can handle right now,” she conceded. “But…my back is still killing me.”

For nearly an hour of labor, right before things really got real, she had said that most of the contractions had been hitting her in her lower back. She had tried to describe the pressure and the intensity of it, but Hank knew that he’d never really know. He had simply done as she’d told him and pushed his fist against her back to try and counteract the pressure in her body. She’d never been able to say if that really helped or not, but for the sake of his sanity, unless told otherwise, he’d keep believing that he helped.

“I gotcha,” he said, snapping to attention.

He moved to stand at her back, where she was still curled on her side, and he gently started to massage circles into her lower back. All of her muscles felt knotted and tight, and he pushed his thumbs into her skin to try and loosen some of the tension there.

Nell groaned slightly, lowering her head to her pillow. Hank immediately eased up, looking up at her face.

“Honey?”

“No, that’s good…” she assured. “That feels good.”

Hank hesitated, but then he went back to his task of comforting his wife. He kneaded his knuckles into her coiled muscles, rubbing his hands up and down her back, trying to work loose all of those angry little knots and hard spots that labor had inflicted on her.

All the while, he saw her figure starting to relax and uncurl on the bed. Taking heart from this, he started to work his way up, carefully avoiding the tender areas on her torso and just sticking with rubbing her back until he reached her shoulders.

She hummed contentedly when he found the knotted muscles of her shoulders and started working on them. Her eyes had finally drifted closed, but she continued to fight it.

“You’re wonderful,” she mumbled.

He snickered, “I know.”

She peered open one eye to look up at him. He smiled and winked at her. She snorted and closed her eye again.

He lightened his touch to just his fingertips, brushing them up and down the sleeve of her arm, as he leaned in and whispered.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart. I can hold down the fort.”

She hummed again, but the decision was seemingly not up to her any longer. Her body was demanding rest now, and it was taking her swiftly. Hank watched her finally sink under into sleep, and he very carefully pulled the blanket up from her waist to her shoulders, fully covering her against the hospital’s chill.

She stayed asleep, and he took that as a win, taking a step back and worshipping her with his eyes for a moment.

Then the bundle in the bassinet started to squirm.

“Oh, now, don’t you start,” he whispered with a grin, circling the bed and moving toward the other center of his universe.

Cole’s eyes were still shut, but he was wiggling and moving in a trying-to-wake-up kind of way. Hank gently picked him up, cradling his son to his chest and taking a walk around the room, hoping to lull him back to sleep.

“You just take it easy on us, bud,” he whispered, melting into the warmth and the smell of the little boy in his arms. “Let Mama get some sleep. She worked hard today.”

Cole made a low cooing sound, and Hank kept a careful hold of him, pacing in gentle circles around the room.

“Yeah,” he hummed, pressing his lips to the newborn’s head and closing his eyes, just drinking him in. “Let Mama get some sleep. We’ll just have some Guy Time for a while, just you and me…Then your dad’s gonna have to start making phone calls to let people know that you’ve made your grand entrance, little dude. But I’ll do that later…I want to keep hanging out with you all to myself for a while, is that cool?”

Cole didn’t respond, seeming to go back to sleep in Hank’s arms.

Hank smiled and continued to just walk in loops around the room with his son, occasionally looking from Cole’s sleeping face over to Nell’s sleeping face.

Yeah…he’d start making phone calls later…He wasn’t ready to pop this bubble yet.


	12. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank and Connor get into a spat. It happens sometimes, so the rest of the squad isn't concerned at first. But something said in a moment of anger shifts the spat into something else, and there is no taking it back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another abandoned WIP that I found when I was rummaging through my hard drive. This one is set either right before Camaraderie or just after that story starts. In my head, I think this WIP and the WIP from chapter one were supposed to go together, but the continuity doesn't line up so...whatever. I guess that's why it got abandoned. At any rate, enjoy.

Normally, when Hank and Connor got into an argument, it was entertaining to watch. It was always one of those situations where two people just spent too long around each other and eventually got irritated about a lot of petty things. It would boil over because of something stupid, some final idiotic straw, and they would huff and puff and get it out of their systems. An hour later, they’d be back in sync.

This was not one of those. This wasn’t argument. This was a fight, and Person wasn’t entirely convinced that one of them wasn’t going to start swinging if this kept up.

“—like some goddamn Old Testament shit!” Hank was practically screaming.

Standing on the other side of the table in the interrogation room, Connor was standing far too still, his own anger making him a statue where it was turning Hank into a wildly gesturing maniac.

“Should we…leave?” Chris asked awkwardly.

Person, Chris, and Tina stood in the viewing room on the other side of the glass.

“There are discrepancies in his alibi that do not match the timeline,” Connor snapped back. “I applied what I estimated to be the correct amount of pressure to make him slip.”

“I’m not arguing that there are discrepancies, but there’s some goddamn decorum to be had with these things, JESUS CHRIST!” Hank roared.

Tina was the only one sitting, parked between Person and Chris. “Nah. Gavin already took the guy into holding. I want to see how this show ends.”

Person chewed on her lip, folding her arms across her chest and squinting at the glass. “This one isn’t blowing over like they usually do. It’s getting ugly.”

“Ah, they’re both big boys.” Tina waved her off.

Chris and Person exchanged uneasy looks. Chris fidgeted and then stepped toward the door.

“Well, I think I’m gonna split.” He slipped out.

“Boo,” Tina crooned after him.

“Your judgment is being colored by the circumstances!” Connor’s voice ticked up a notch. “We have evidence, witnesses, motive, and a confession. He murdered that man. This is black and white.”

“Maybe, but we have to take those motives into consideration. He’s in pain, and you were just kicking him while he was already down!”

Person shifted uncomfortably. As far as cases go, this one was pretty cut and dry. The suspect had been arrested not far from the scene of the murder, where he had evidently confronted and then strangled his neighbor in the backyard. A crime of passion, not premeditated, but fueled purely by grief and rage.

“I am trying to secure justice for the victim. I’m not unsympathetic to the suspect, but he is not immune to repercussions just because—“

“None of what you just put that man through was sympathetic in THE LEAST, you asshole,” Hank retorted.

“We should stop this,” Person advised, sensing the argument careening toward something bad.

Tina shifted in her seat, starting to sense it too. “…Yeah, I think you may be right—“

“Hank.” Connor was visibly losing his grip on being logical along with his patience. “You need to recuse yourself from this case. It’s obviously affecting you. He MURDERED his neighbor.”

Person grimaced. The suspect and the victim had been on good terms as far as they could discern, until the victim had babysat the suspect’s young daughter. The girl died from accidental drowning in the backyard pool, when the victim hadn’t been paying close enough attention. Her father was now in a holding cell for the other man’s murder, having temporarily lost his senses to his grief and rage over what had happened.

The door to the viewing room clicked open, and Captain Fowler stuck his head in. Person startled, and Tina got to her feet.

“Captain,” they both greeted.

“Miller said it’s getting nasty,” Fowler stated, peering at the glass. “Either of you two tried to break them up, or are you just watching them go at it until one of them snaps?”

Both officers shrunk slightly, and Person turned toward the door. “I’ll—“

“—I understand that he is in pain,” Connor was saying firmly, “but that does not excuse—“

“The fuck you understand? How could you understand?” Hank reached a new decibel. “You don’t know—You don’t have a family! You can’t know what it’s like to lose—“

Fowler punched the communication button. “ENOUGH.”

Both men in the interview room started at the captain’s voice coming over the radio. Hank spun on his heel, glaring at the mirror as though he could see Fowler if he stared hard enough. Connor only glanced once, lightning fast, at the glass, then pointedly looked away, staring at the far wall, LED a scorching red at his temple.

“Shit,” Tina whispered.

Shit was an understatement. Person cringed at the silence that swallowed both rooms in the aftermath. She looked first to Connor, then to Hank. Connor was rigid, straightening slowly into perfect posture. He fidgeted once with the cuffs of his sleeves and then fixed his tie, resuming what Person had come to recognize as an idling mode of the RK800 model: a form of standby between receiving orders.

Hank’s animated gesturing had gone still as well, not as mechanically still as Connor, but tension was leeching into his frame as it registered what he’d just screamed at his partner. He looked away from the mirror, the fighting energy sapping from him as he looked at the android.

“Connor, I—Shit, I’m sorry, that—“

“It’s fine, Lieutenant,” Connor said evenly, eyes on the door.

Hank grimaced. “No, it’s not fine. That—“

Connor took a sharp step to the left, putting Hank out of his path to the door, and then strode over to the exit in long, measured steps.

“Fuck,” Fowler hissed, moving out into the hallway to intercept.

Person started after him but lingered in the doorway. The door to the interrogation room opened and Connor strode out, nearly running in his haste to get out of the room.

“Connor,” Fowler started. “We need to—“

“I need to leave,” Connor cut in, the rare interruption of his captain betraying his emotional state. “Sir, please let me leave.”

Fowler eyed him, and as he did, Connor glanced to the side, spotting Person and Tina still in the viewing room…having clearly seen the whole thing go down. Heat crawled up Person’s neck as the visible humiliation washed across Connor’s face at the fact that there had been an audience for that.

“Dismissed,” Fowler conceded, stepping aside.

Connor nodded curtly and then walked around him, beelining for the door.

“Connor—“ Person took a step after him, but Connor threw one hand back in a stopping gesture, not looking at her as he silently gestured for space. She stopped but watched him go as he fled the bullpen.

Hank hurried out of the interrogation room, eyes wide and face pale. “Jeffrey, where’d he go? I just fucked up—“

“Yeah, I know, I saw it,” Fowler remarked tiredly. “I sent him home. I should send you home too, but I don’t think you two should be around each other right now.” He bobbed his head toward the bullpen. “My office. We need to get some shit straightened out before the perp lawyers up.” He looked to Tina and Person. “Don’t you two have somewhere else to be?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry, sir.”

The two ducked away from the scene, scurrying back toward the bullpen. Connor was long gone, and Person idled by her desk, not sitting down. Tina came to a stop beside her, puffing out her cheeks as she heaved a sigh.

“Well, that was…awful.”

Person ran a hand over her forehead. “Yeah.”

“God, did you see the look on Connor’s face?” Tina murmured. “Hank should have just slapped him; I think it would have hurt him less.”

Person closed her eyes. “Yeah, I saw it. Don’t remind me.”

Tina swung her arms at her sides awkwardly before wrapping them around herself. “So, do we…I mean should we…What do we do?”

Person took a deep breath, staring in the empty space left behind as Connor had fled the bullpen. Then she was grabbing her jacket.

“I’m going after him. I’ve got a patrol shift in half an hour—“

“I’ll cover you,” Tina said with a nod.

Person glanced back at her. “Thanks.”

She yanked Connor’s forgotten jacket off his desk chair, looping it over her arm as she hurried out of the station into the brisk winter afternoon after him.


	13. A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben knows why Hank gets in a bad mood during cold weather, and he gives him space. Ben doesn't know why Connor gets in a bad mood during cold weather, and Connor isn't up to sharing. So Ben, Person, and Wilson just opt for being there for him instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another abandoned WIP. This started out as a draft for a Camaraderie prompt waaay back when, but just didn't make the cut. More Hank and Connor petty tiff implications, leading to group support. Apparently that was my jam early on: starting to write those scenarios and then never following through on them XD

In Hank’s words, Connor had been a “real cranky asshole” lately.

Now, Ben thought that was a little harsh. More likely it was just a case of those two being around each other too much. They worked together, lived together, and as far as Ben could tell, spent most of their free time together too. They were bound to eventually drive each other crazy; he was honestly shocked it hadn’t happened sooner. All that being said, Connor had been nothing short of an angel since Hank had left the house to get away and have some time to himself.

Ben had been around the other man long enough to know what was really going on with him. The first snow of the season had coated Detroit in a blanket of white and cold, and that always put Hank in a foul mood. He knew why Hank hated winter, and it was always the first real snow of the year that brought it all up again. This was the first winter since the revolution shook Detroit, and…he didn’t know, maybe he’d thought it wouldn’t have affected his friend so much this year?

Whewee, he had been wrong on that one. If anybody had been a cranky asshole, it was Hank, but Ben wasn’t going to say that to his face, not until spring hit at least.

At any rate, the air in the house had been a little thick in the wake of his exit, and Ben had distracted himself and hopefully Connor by throwing in another episode. Tonight was Star Trek night, but Connor had been so downright melancholy that Ben had subtly texted Person to come over and maybe help the guy’s mood a bit. Person had brought Wilson with her, and that was where the evening found them two hours later.

Wilson was in the recliner with one game controller, and Ben was on one end of the couch with the other controller, locked in the heated battle of a space adventure game that Wilson had brought. Person was on the other end of the couch, slouched back in the cushions with her feet propped on the coffee table, playing on her phone. Connor had at one point been sitting sandwiched between them, but as the night had worn on, he had slumped back and teetered sideways, leaning against Person’s shoulder. He had eventually, somehow, ended up lying across the couch, using Person’s thigh as a pillow and stretching his legs across Ben’s lap.

Turns out, Connor hated the cold too, but unlike with Hank, Ben had no idea why. All he knew was that the android had been very quiet and very still since assuming that position, and his LED was a timidly cycling blue. He was lying on his side, absently watching Wilson and Ben’s game, though Ben didn’t see a lot of focus in his eyes, and his eyelids seemed to get heavier the longer Person fiddled her fingers through his hair.

Was it possible for androids to get touch starved? Because this, this looked like somebody who was touch starved. And whatever reasons Connor had for disliking cold, they were strong enough to render him nearly mute and listless, bundled in a blue DPD hoodie and thick grey sweatpants: a far cry from the pressed and professional android when he was on the clock.

Ben tested his hypothesis a few times during the course of the next round against Wilson. He sat forward a little, folding his forearms over Connor’s legs as he worked the controller in front of him. The kid had tensed a little but almost immediately melted at the additional contact. Ben left his forearms where they were after that, only occasionally pulling back to drum his hands against the guy’s shins during the game’s loading screens.

All things considered, it was a fairly relaxing evening…until Wilson brought out fighting words.

“No, no absolutely not,” Ben pointed angrily at the other man. “You put that sentence back in your mouth.”

Wilson was kicked back in the recliner with a shit-eating grin. “No, I said it and I stand by it.”

“No WAY the Millennium Falcon even survives a fight against the USS Enterprise, much less WINS,” Ben snapped back, setting his controller down and twisting in his seat to face his opponent fully.

Directly in the two men’s eye line, Person rolled her eyes and crossed one ankle over the other, shifting her position to get more comfortable. Connor lifted his head off her leg long enough for her to adjust, then he settled back down, arms crossed over his chest and his face angled down against her knee. Person scratched a spot on her jaw and then lit her hand back on the top of his head. Ben didn’t miss how Connor’s eyes immediately glazed over with relief at the gentle contact.

Ben turned his focus back on Wilson, the blasphemer. “The Enterprise is fully staffed with specially trained and highly qualified personnel—“

“Versus a smarmy space pirate and a Wookie,” Wilson grinned.

“Just consider the scale at least! The Enterprise is several times larger than the Falcon. Plus…two words, buddy boy: photon torpedoes,” Ben snapped back.

Wilson cackled and shook his head, and Person sighed.

“Everybody knows the Enterprise wouldn’t even break a sweat to demolish the Millennium Falcon, Ben,” she stated, not looking up from her phone. “Wilson’s just trying to get you worked up.”

“Well, mission accomplished,” Ben snarked.

Connor visibly tensed, and Person tilted her head, looking at him. His eyes flitted up to hers once, not saying anything. Person just winked and ruffled his hair before turning her attention back to her phone. Ben reached out and lightly clapped his hand against the android’s leg.

“Weigh in here, Connor. Be the voice of reason,” he goaded.

Connor gave a half shrug from his semi-curled position, and his voice was thick and tired when he finally chimed in. “Enterprise.”

“Aha!” Ben glowered at Wilson.

Wilson spread his hands with a laugh. “I literally don’t even care, man. It’s just funny watching your face get red. It’s fiction, Ben.”

“I still win. It’s three on one,” he cheered, patting Connor’s leg in congratulations. “That’s—“

Connor abruptly jerked, and both Ben and Person lifted their hands away from him.

“The Hell was that, dude?” Person prompted.

Connor looked a little perplexed as well, glancing down at himself. “Unknown.”

Ben knew what the little twitch had LOOKED like…but surely…there was no way…

“Connor,” he asked slowly, innocently. “Are you…ticklish?”

Connor’s expression was deadpan. “No.”

Person snickered and lifted her hand from his hair, wiggling her fingers down into his neck. “Are you suuuure?”

Connor’s head immediately snapped down and his shoulder shot up, pinning Person’s hand in place. “I’m not!”

Person got her other hand around to the other side of his neck. He flailed a bit, uncrossing his arms and reaching up to swat away her touch. That left his middle entirely exposed, and Ben brought up both hands.

“I think you are!” Ben attacked, mercilessly tickling the android’s middle.

Connor let out an undignified squeak, lurching on the couch. A helpless laugh escaped, followed by some breathless confusion.

“Wh-What are you d-doing? Why is that—ack!” he doubled over in fits, and Ben and Person continued their double team attack.

The single, strangled laugh peppered into a series of giggles as the tickling continued, and somewhere along the way the sound changed from helpless and confused to a more genuine, natural laughter. Ben couldn’t help but start snickering with him. After hours of the poor guy curled up miserably on the couch, it was great to see him come out of it a little.

It didn’t take long before Connor was switching to offense, going for the underside of Person’s knee within his reach. She squawked at the turnabout and tried to squirm away.

“Oh, oh, he’s fighting back!” Wilson narrated from the recliner.

It was a short lived battle, however, as Person’s tactic to avoid being tickled was to just pull Connor into a bear hug and not let him go. A combination of Person being freakishly strong and Connor surrendering immediately to the physical touch ended that little ‘fight’ quickly, and they more or less ended up as a weird little cuddle puddle on the cushions.

Ben chuckled at them and shrugged at Wilson. “Call it a draw, I guess.”

“Yeah, man…Kinda like the Millennium Falcon and the Enterprise—“

“Lawrence Victoria Wilson—“

“That’s not even my—“

“Lawrence VICTORIA Wilson, I SWEAR TO GOD—“


	14. Carry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor and the other 07 androids leave a late night party, but the party isn’t ready to leave them. They get a little boisterous, and Julia learns that dancing on uneven pavement in dagger heels is a bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This…This is silly fluff with some shameless shippy tones. I’m just calling it like it is. I simply didn’t have any angsty whump in me tonight. So you get fluffy whump.

On paper, the Jericho-sponsored event was a party intended to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution, with music, dancing, thirium-based drinks and food, and other general merriment. It was a party that would allow androids to relax, to mingle, and to have fun in a safe space.

By word of mouth, it had simply come to be known as “Android Prom.”

Connor had let the other androids at the DPD’s 7th precinct convince him to come with them to the event, despite the fact that his relationship with the population of Jericho was still in the infant stages of civil. The way he calculated it: there was strength in numbers, and so he spent the evening taking full advantage of sticking close to the other five DPD androids. Well, technically there were six of them plus Connor; Polly had invited her girlfriend Ember along with their group.

So when the rest of them decided they were ready to leave, Connor was right there with them, not especially wanting to stay at the party where he hardly knew anyone else besides Markus, North, Josh, and Simon…all of whom had been very busy hosting and entertaining the other guests. Even now, as the seven of them left the party, clearly the party was not ready to leave them.

“And I can’t fight this feeling anymoooore!” Gwen sang loudly, a few paces ahead of them and dancing barefoot on the sidewalk in her slinky purple dress. “I’ve forgotten what I started fighting foooor!”

Zeke, in his stylish blue suit, jumped ahead of them to join her, holding up an invisible microphone, “It’s time to bring this ship into the shore…and throw away the oar…foreverrrr!”

His hair was tousled and his tie was loose from partying so hard, compared to his twin patrol android, Apollo, who was still as pressed as ever in his standard formal black suit. There hadn’t really been a dress code for this event, but since the party had been dubbed Android Prom, the majority of the attendees had leaned fully into the theme of prom gowns and tuxedoes.

Connor was one of them, in his own formal suit like Apollo, and Julia had joked that they looked more like the two of them had been hired as security, rather than going somewhere to have fun. She had managed to style a fashionable green suit for herself, only hers was more form fitting and she had added sharply steep white heels that nearly brought her to Connor’s height.

Polly had opted for a knee length, frilly yellow dress that bounced around her as she danced. The dancing had quickly tapered off as they left the party, though, as the high heels that three of the female androids were wearing started taking their tolls. Ember of course was not wearing heels. She was already close to seven feet tall, and her white pantsuit with yellow accents complemented Polly’s. She had currently been roped into being Polly’s support as she limped down the sidewalk, refusing to take off the painful shoes and equally too stubborn to let her girlfriend just carry her, as Ember had already offered a few times.

“AND I CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANYMOOORE!” Gwen sang on, having immediately stripped out of her strappy silver shoes and given them to Apollo to carry for her.

“I’ve forgotten what I started fighting FOOOOOOOOOR!” Julia loudly joined in, gesturing dramatically with her arms.

“And if I had to crawl upon the floor…come crashing through your door!” Zeke sang. “Baby, I can’t fight this feeling anymooore!”

As they were walking, Apollo snorted and glanced at Connor. “They weren’t serving alcoholic thirium tonight, correct?”

Connor smirked, watching Zeke pull Julia into a spinning dance move. “I don’t think so. That doesn’t appear to be stopping any of them from having a good time.”

“Ow!” came a yelp, and the singing immediately stopped.

Connor looked back to the three androids ahead of them in time to see Zeke abruptly grab at Julia to keep her from falling to the ground. One of her legs was buckled, and it looked like her high heeled shoe had caused her to roll her ankle while dancing on the uneven sidewalk.

“Whoa, I gotcha,” Zeke said, holding her steady. “Sorry, Jules. You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m—“ Julia straightened up, only for her knee to wobble again. She hissed and let Zeke keep his hold on her. “Ow, nope, no, that—I’m okay, just—“

She glanced around, looking for something else to lean against or sit on. There was a bus stop bench a few meters away, and Connor moved to her other side, taking one of her arms across his shoulders.

“Sit down over here,” he suggested, and he and Zeke helped her limp over to the bench and sit down.

“I told you those heels were a mistake!” Polly teased lightly, holding onto Ember’s arm to steady herself on her own aching feet.

“But they make my legs look so good,” Julia groaned, bending in her seat to survey her ankle. “I went for fashion over function, shut up!”

Connor frowned and knelt down beside the bench, running a quick scan on the structural components of her ankle.

“I’m not detecting any breaks, but the rolling motion did cause a moderate sprain to the synthetic musculature around the ankle joint,” he diagnosed, glancing up at Julia. “Can I…?”

“Go for it,” Julia slumped in her seat, twisting her uninjured foot out of her other shoe.

Connor carefully grasped her leg just above the ankle and gently tugged the offending shoe away. He grimaced to see the blue indentation lines in the skin of her foot where the shoe had rubbed all night.

“…Julia,” he murmured chidingly.

“It’s fine!”

“It’s not. You can’t walk on this,” he said.

“There are no more bus services tonight,” Apollo stated. “But I could call a taxi to take her home safely.”

“No.” Julia shook her head. “I don’t want…I don’t want to end the night like this,” she gestured in frustration to her foot. “We were all having fun…singing and dancing like idiots—“

“Speak for yourself,” Gwen tutted. “I was goddamn rocking it.”

“Oh, I can’t take it anymore,” Polly finally groaned, using Ember as a steadying post as she kicked out of her own heels. “Fuck these shoes!”

As soon as Polly stood flat on her feet, an expression of euphoria seemed to wash across her face. Zeke looked alarmed and took a step away from her. Connor smirked at her, then looked more seriously to Julia. She looked more upset about ruining the group’s fun than over her actual injury.

He tilted his head and gingerly moved her ankle slightly to gauge the discomfort level. Julia flinched and involuntarily yanked her foot back a little.

“Sorry,” he said softly, reaching up and loosening his tie. “I can wrap it up with my tie until you get home. We can stop by a store and buy some first aid supplies if you don’t have any at your apartment.”

Julia eyed him warily but didn’t stop him as he did exactly that, removing his neck tie and expertly wrapping it around her ankle and her foot to stabilize the joint.

“And how do you propose we get there?” she prompted.

Connor tied off the end of the fabric and eyed his handiwork. Satisfied, he looked at her simply.

“I could carry you.”

Julia squawked, her face immediately turning blue, but when Connor didn’t take back the offer, she shifted in her seat and shrugged.

“Aight.”

It took some maneuvering, but they ended up opting for a piggyback arrangement. Connor soon stood up with Julia situated on his back. She hitched her legs around his waist, and he secured her with his arms under her knees. She awkwardly wrapped her arms around his neck and gave a nod.

“Onward,” she chimed.

Connor nodded back, and he swiveled to look at the others. “You heard the woman. Onward.”

Gwen snorted and shook her head, picking up Julia’s heels and pawning them off on Apollo. He wordlessly took the dangerous heels in one hand, Gwen’s abandoned shoes in his other hand. Ember had stuffed Polly’s heels in her jacket pockets.

Zeke gave a salute and took the lead of the group, and they resumed walking down the sidewalk.

It didn’t take long for Gwen to start humming again. The humming turned back into singing.

“And even as I wander, I’m keeping you in sight…You’re a candle in the window on a cold dark winter’s night…”

Polly struck out with her this time, holding Ember’s hand and making their joined arms swing together. “And I’m getting closer than I ever thought I miiiiiiight!”

Zeke mimicked an air guitar, trying and failing to get Apollo to join in. Connor felt Julia wiggle a bit, and he shifted to keep a strong hold of her. Gwen spun around, raising both fists to her chest before jubilantly singing out.

“AND I CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANYMOOORE!” She pointed at Julia.

Julia’s arm loosened from Connor’s neck, and she pointed back at Gwen, singing loudly.

“I’VE FORGOTTEN WHAT I STARTED FIGHTING FOOOOR!”

Gwen did a spin, carefully navigating the swishiness of her skirt. Since Julia couldn’t literally join her in the dance, Connor instead turned in a quick circle with her on his back, effectively ‘dancing’ her around Zeke and Gwen. Julia involuntarily clung to him at the change, then cackled and loosened up, trusting his balance.

“IT’S TIME TO BRING THIS SHIP INTO THE SHORE!” Polly belted out, “AND THROW AWAY THE OAR, FOREVER—“

“FOREVER!” Zeke added behind her.

Gwen, Polly, Julia, and Zeke all continued singing together as a choir, while Ember indulgently smiled at her girlfriend and Apollo mutely followed behind the group. Connor didn’t quite join in on the singing, but he indulged Julia in bouncing on his feet and tilting side to side to emulate dancing for her.

Together, their motley crew picked their way down the sidewalk of the late night city scape, and soon enough the interior lights of a 24 hour store came into view down the block. Thinking of medical wrap for Julia’s ankle, Connor subtly steered the group toward the shop. By then, the song had wound down and promptly wound back up again, though their boisterous singing toned down slightly as they approached the human-owned business.

Apollo ended up offering to go inside alone to avoid a scene while the others waited outside.

“Doing okay?” Connor asked, turning his head to look at Julia. He moved his arm to adjust his grip around her leg, causing her to slide slightly.

“Ye—don’t drop me!” she yelped, clinging to his back.

He chuckled and fixed his grip. “I won’t. I’ve got you; I promise. You trust me?”

She scoffed and playfully swatted the top of his head.

_I tell myself that I can’t hold out forever…_

Connor realized with horror that the others had managed to get the song stuck in his head. Even worse, he had started humming it without realizing it.

_I said there is no reason for my fear…_

Julia shifted somewhat awkwardly, clearly noticing it too.

“Cause I feel so secure when we’re togeeeeether,” she sang with a little wiggle, looking away. “You give my life direction…You make everything so clear…”

Connor hesitated, then leaned side to side with her in a playful sway, finally giving in and singing very quietly.

“And even as I wander, I’m keeping you in sight…You’re a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter’s night…”

Ember turned Polly in a flirty spin a few paces away, speaking more than singing the next lyrics. “And I’m getting closer than I ever thought I might…”

Zeke brought back the air guitar, just as Apollo stepped out of the store, a small bag in hand with medical supplies, with Gwen and Julia’s shoes in his other hand. He took note of the six of them still singing and somewhat dancing with each other. For a split second, it looked like he might finally break down and join them, but that split second quickly passed.

Unable to take it, Gwen leapt up and brought them back into the full swing.

“AND I CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANYMOOORE!”

Connor and the others this time immediately joined in, resuming their dance down the sidewalk, much to the bewilderment of the night shift shop worker who watched them take their seven-android party off into the Detroit night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With apologies to REO Speedwagon.


	15. Adverse Reactions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor falls through ice at a crime scene and has a bad reaction. Person, Chris, and Apollo squad up to help him through the past trauma that inevitably resurfaces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Shaliek: “Please tell the story of the Connor falling into the ice incident!”

The call had come in about a body found in a partially submerged car. Chris and Apollo had arrived first and started cataloguing the scene when Connor and Person rolled up in Person’s squad car. Person, still being new to her detective status, had been obnoxiously following the letter of crime scene procedure, while Connor had taken a step back to let her process the scene herself, only offering his input when asked. Despite Connor technically being the most senior officer on site, it was still a bit strange to see him in that role. After watching him trail after Hank for so long, it was odd watching Person do that to him now.

After a while, Connor had removed himself completely in order to let Person stand on her own, rattling off some excuse about checking the perimeter, and then he had promptly disappeared for several minutes. It didn’t take long for Person to get real bossy, real fast after that, and Chris exchanged an amused and slightly annoyed look with Apollo.

“Forty five year old Jennifer Davis,” Apollo confirmed for her. “Initial assessment indicates that cause of death was unrelated to the accident. Bruising appears to be post-mortem. Difficult to determine time of death due to environmental factors, although I would estimate at least several hours due to the refreezing of the water around the vehicle.”

Person straightened, where she had been kneeling near the open driver side door observing the body, and looked at Apollo with a smirk. “Trying to show me up at my own crime scene?”

Apollo looked confused, tilting his head and looking to Chris for help.

Chris snorted, clapping him on the shoulder. “For not being a detective model android, you’ve been breaking down the scene pretty thoroughly, dude.”

Apollo deadpanned. “I was designed to assist. I’m assisting.”

Person snorted, taking a step back off the frozen sheet of ice and up onto the embankment. The green car had come to a stop at a thirty degree angle off the shoulder of a snow-slicked road. Its entire nose was under the ice, and Chris could see parts of the hood had buckled where it had impacted the floor of the partially frozen creek. Inside, the body of Jennifer Davis was pale and lifeless.

“No tire marks on the street back there,” Person noted. “No signs that she hit the brakes or tried to do anything to prevent running off the road. Apollo might be on to something. She might have already been dead before the car even crashed…” She rubbed her jaw and glanced around. “Speaking of detective model androids, where did ours wander off to?”

Chris looked around as well, not seeing Connor nearby. “He said he was going to see if there was anything worth noting around the perimeter of the scene. I’ll go see what he’s up to.”

Person was stepping around the back of the car toward the passenger side, eyes still roaming over the car. “Sure.”

Chris took his leave of the two of them, heading in the direction that Connor had gone. It wasn’t necessarily “in the trees,” but the foliage off the shoulder and around the creek swallowed a lot of sound and visuals. Chris was barely out of eyeshot of the crime scene, but already he couldn’t hear Person and Apollo talking.

He kept his eyes down as he navigated his feet across some lumpy, knotted roots, only to look up and abruptly spot Connor.

“Connor, hey, we’re just about—Connor?”

The RK800 had his back turned toward Chris, and he didn’t turn around when Chris addressed him. He didn’t move at all, actually. He was standing in the middle of the shallow creek, arms slightly raised away from him, as though trying to balance. It looked like the ice underfoot had buckled under his weight, causing him to drop into the knee-deep, icy water.

Despite that, Connor wasn’t moving. Not flailing, not trying to get out, not looking around for help, not doing anything. He was just…for lack of a better word…frozen.

“Hey!” Chris called out more loudly toward him. “Connor!”

No response.

“Shit.” Chris glanced back, cupping a hand around his mouth. “Person! Apollo!”

“Coming!” Apollo bellowed back.

Chris looked toward Connor again. He was only about five feet away from Chris, but Chris didn’t trust that ice to hold him without breaking. He couldn’t reach Connor…and he didn’t like this. Something was wrong. Connor wasn’t reacting to anything.

“Shit,” he cursed again then stepped one foot out onto the ice.

As predicted, it cracked, and his foot sunk to the ankle. Cold water immediately soaked through his shoes and his pant leg, digging at his skin and sapping away his body heat.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he hissed, going all the way and stomping his other heel into the ice on the next step.

He marched into the water until it was halfway up his calves, and it honest to God felt like he was being stabbed, the cold hurt so sharply. Nevertheless, he reached Connor and grabbed him from behind at the elbow.

“Hey, Connor, hey!” He shook him, pulling Connor around.

Connor twisted at the waist from Chris’s pulling, but he made no motion to turn on his own to face him. He felt cold under Chris’s hand, and Chris noted that the water around the android had only just started to refreeze again.

Jesus, how long had he been just standing in this?!

“Connor—“ Chris stomped around until he was in front of Connor, looking him in the eyes.

Connor stared through him, his LED a blazing red, but his eyes were dull and not focusing.

Person reached the embankment, breath coming out in a fog. “Chris? Fuck, what the Hell—“

“He’s not responding,” Chris called, grabbing Connor by the shoulders and shaking him once.

Connor moved with the shaking, but it didn’t do any good. Chris waved a hand in front of his face, then held his palm near his mouth and nose. His ventilation system had shut off, so he wasn’t breathing, but Chris could feel his system working furiously where his other hand was on Connor’s shoulder.

Apollo clomped down into the creek without preamble, wincing at the cold water as it assaulted his legs as well. “We need to get him out. No vital biocomponents appear to be submerged in the water, but there is still a risk of permanent damage to his legs if we don’t start warming measures immediately.”

“Get his arm,” Chris said, pulling one of Connor’s arms across his shoulders.

Apollo did the same with his other arm, and together they started to haul the unresponsive android toward the dirt embankment. The water felt thick, pushing back at them, while chunks of ice knocked against their legs as they sloshed through it.

“Got him?” Person asked Apollo first. Getting a grunt in confirmation, Person reached toward Connor. “Apollo’s got him. Chris, get out of the water.”

“Gladly!” Chris made sure Apollo had a firm grip on Connor, and then he hurried his steps up onto the dirt.

Person grabbed his elbow to make sure he had his balance, and once Chris gave her a nod, she turned her attention back to Connor. Apollo half dragged and half carried him up out of the creek, and Person ducked into Connor’s listless line of sight.

“Fuck,” she hissed. “Chris, are you all right?”

“Fine,” Chris said, teeth chattering as he stomped his feet, trying to get blood flow back into his limbs.

“Go start up my squad car and put the heat on full blast. I’ve got three emergency blankets in the trunk and a first aid kit with some heating packs in it. Get them.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“NOW, CHRIS. That’s an order.”

Chris didn’t waste his breath asking again, just turned and ran back the short distance to where both squad cars were parked. He opted to get the heat on both cars running, digging out both Person’s emergency blankets and his own, piling them in the front of her car. He had just finished calling in to dispatch when Person and Apollo reached them, Connor’s arms around their necks and clearly not even trying to stand on his own.

“Passenger seat,” she said, and Chris opened the squad car’s front passenger side door while she and Apollo guided Connor over to it.

They lowered him into the seat, and Person was immediately grabbing up a handful of the heating packs from the open first aid kit on the hood.

“Get dried off and warmed up,” she ordered them both.

Chris decided to just slide into the backseat of the squad car, eagerly following her order and stripping off his waterlogged shoes. He peeled off his wet socks and tossed them in the floorboards, taking the blanket that Apollo handed him and using it to dry off his feet and calves.

In the front, Person had wrapped one of the blankets around Connor and was shoving more heating packs against his chest and in his lap. She was working off his boots and socks as well and likewise trying to dry him off. Connor was a ragdoll throughout her ministrations, his eyes only appearing to follow her on a mechanical level.

“Connor, can you hear me?” she said, laying more heating packs over his feet and then wrapping his lower legs in more blankets. “Connor, I need you to say something. Let me know you’re in there.”

Apollo took a step closer, holding out a hand and pulling back his skin program for an interface. “Perhaps I could reach him with—“

“No!” Person swatted his arm away. “If he’s in too deep, he might pull you in unintentionally, and you’ll get stuck there too.”

“Too deep where?” Chris asked, rubbing at his legs through the blankets.

“Apollo, get in the car. You got wet too,” Person ordered.

“I’m all right—“

“And I want you to stay that way,” Person pressed. “Get in the car.”

Apollo frowned but relented, moving around to the other side of the car and joining Chris in the back seat. However, he did not attempt to take his share of the warming measures available.

“Dispatch is sending Tina and Wilson out to take over the scene,” Chris informed. “So we can get Connor back to the station and have Kevin look at him.”

Person shook her head, rubbing Connor’s legs through the blankets to try and get some frictional heat going. “Kevin isn’t going to do anything that I’m not already doing. We just need to warm him up.”

“What is wrong with him?” Chris asked. “Why is he acting like this? It’s like he’s just shut down almost.”

“He has some old trauma relating to the cold,” Person said curtly. “That little dip must have triggered it. He’s okay…He’ll be okay…”

Chris wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince them or herself. Either way, he exchanged another look with Apollo. The PC200 was starting to shiver, but he was clearly trying to suppress it.

“Man, take one of these,” Chris said, pushing a blanket at him. “I’m getting colder just looking at you.”

Connor jerked in the front seat, and Person jumped back, smacking the back of her head on the top of the car.

“Fuck—He’s seizing.”

“What?” Chris sat up behind the passenger seat, recognizing the twitching motions moving through Connor’s body. “Androids can have seizures?”

Person didn’t answer, reaching over to the dashboard and pushing a button. The security divider that usually separated the front and back of the squad car seating rolled up out of the way, and then she was reaching down, pulling the lever that controlled the angle of the front seat.

“Keep him steady,” she ordered as the seat reclined back with Connor in it.

Chris shimmied sideways against Apollo to let the seat recline as far as it could, and he quickly got his hands on Connor’s shaking shoulders.

“Easy, man, easy,” he said calmly. “You’re okay. You’re safe, Connor.”

Person’s jaw was locked as she closed the passenger side door, hurrying over to the driver’s side and jumping in. She closed the door behind her, hoping to lock in the heated air pouring out of the vents. Then she was shucking her outer jacket and laying it out over Connor’s top half for another added layer of insulation.

“I’m contacting AES,” Apollo said, his LED spinning yellow. He reached out a hand again. “Please, Detective, if you will allow me to try to at least—“

“No, don’t touch him,” Person reinforced her order. “I don’t want to risk you being affected by this too. I’ve got him.”

After a few seconds, the ‘seizure’ subsided, and Connor went limp into the seat cushions. Chris stopped his training from taking over, instinctually wanting to move Connor into the recovery position. He didn’t think that was necessary in this situation for an android, and Person didn’t move to do so either. So Chris simply moved his hands from Connor’s shoulders to the sides of his head, gently holding him steady and trying to transfer some more heat to him.

Connor coughed weakly, his LED picking up speed as it spun from a throbbing red to a brighter, more reactive shade of red. It wasn’t great, but Chris figured it was progress. Person continued to situate the warming blankets and heating packs on Connor’s body while Chris kept comforting hands on him, and after a few minutes, Connor seemed to be starting to stir out of his blank state.

“Lis…is…” hissed through his teeth, no stronger than a whisper.

“Right here,” Person assured, planting a hand firmly in the middle of his chest. “Come on back, Connor. We’re all right here with you. You’re safe. You warming up? You feel the warm air?”

Chris leaned forward to get a look at Connor’s face. His expression was weary, and his eyes were struggling to focus on Person still. He looked more present than he had since everything went down though at least. Connor manually took a slow breath, trying to jumpstart his ventilation system, which had apparently been one of the auxiliary systems that were shut down during his fugue spell, either to conserve energy or heat or…Hell, Chris was too strung out and cold to worry about the semantics. The point was…he was doing better now.

Connor briefly closed his eyes, and his throat bobbed once through a reflexive swallow against the dry cold air that had pushed into him. Person yanked off her gloves, placing the back of her bare hand to his forehead. Connor made a low noise of acknowledgment, as if to try and convey that he was okay…as if any of them were about to believe him right then.

“…Hate cold…” he mumbled.

“Yeah,” Person said in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. “I know you do. We’ll get you warmed up in no time.”

She rubbed her hands along his arms some more, and Chris spotted the churning blue and red lights of Tina and Wilson’s incoming squad car. Hank’s Oldsmobile was right behind it, and Chris lightly patted Connor’s head with a grin.

“Man, got damn near the whole squad coming out here for you, buddy,” he mused.

Connor blinked slowly, starting to shiver now as his systems re-engaged fully. “S-Sorry…”

“Hey, hey, don’t. This is what we do,” Chris assured, grasping his shoulder supportively. “You just buy me some thermal insulated socks for Christmas, and we’ll call it even.”

Connor gave one hard shiver with a grimace before falling back into a consistent trembling pattern. “D-Deal.”

His LED continued to stay red, and so Person and Chris continued to stay close to him. After a beat, Chris felt Apollo scoot a little closer as well. Closer to the awkward group hug and closer to the group heat.

“Oho, I thought you had your pride to keep you warm?” Chris teased lightly.

Apollo pulled a face and folded his arms around himself, starting to lean away again. “My apologies. I was under the impression that—“

“Ah, no, get in here.” Chris left one hand on Connor’s shoulder, taking his other hand and hooking it around Apollo’s neck, pulling him back closer to the warmth of the group. “I’m just giving you shit, big guy.”

“I am the average height of an adult male—“

Connor swallowed reflexively again with a wince. “Hate…cold…”

“Yeah,” Person agreed softly, and Chris saw Hank climbing out of his car and rushing over to theirs. “We all do. You don’t have to hate it alone, Connor. We’re right here, hating it with you.”

Chris pursed his lips against a grin, shaking his head and giving Connor an encouraging pat.

It was a weird pep talk, but it seemed to be working, and that was all that mattered.


	16. Enemy to Caretaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sequel to the events of chapter 6 "Poisoned." Gavin has to keep an eye on Connor while the android recovers. Neither of them are happy about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from huggiebird: “With Connor being a prototype and all, he is bound to encounter glitches or bugs right? So~ our dear Detective Reed (thinking he’s funny bc he tries to cheer up connor) makes the android detective glitch accidently. It’s fixable by Con’s repair program but it will take the rest of the day. So Reed has to look after Con until it’s fixed.”

Fowler was such an asshole. A conniving, mean spirited, malicious, trolling asshole.

Gavin respected that.

The captain was using the rest of the work day to punish them for the whole Tide pod bullshit. Tina ended up partnering with Hank for the rest of the shift, since Connor was stuck on desk duty until Kevin cleared him. Considering Hank’s foul mood after finding out what had happened, that was basically dooming her to spend the rest of the day in Hell. Fowler had then partnered Gavin with Connor, meaning Gavin was also shackled to desk duty…with Connor…That wasn’t even ‘basically’ Hell. That was ACTUAL Hell.

The only solace that Gavin took from it was that this arrangement was actual Hell for Connor too, having to work with Gavin all day. After all, he was the dumbass who’d voluntarily eaten the Tide pod, knowing full good goddamn well that it was a stupid idea.

Fuckin’ dumbass android.

Mid-afternoon found the two of them holed up in the briefing room, where Gavin had plastered the wall-mounted display board with information about his recent homicide investigation. It was all reports, photos, and scraps of paper from his nightstand when he’d woken up in the middle of the night with a new theory or idea. His gut was telling him that all the pieces were there, but he just wasn’t putting them all together yet. Maybe spreading them out like this would help him see the bigger picture, and the briefing room gave him space to think.

Plus, begrudgingly, he had to admit that Connor was efficient at doing exactly that. His whole fucking robot brain had been designed specifically to analyze a wide spread of seemingly random variables and generate theories on cases like this. And…as much as he equally begrudgingly did not want Connor’s name anywhere on Gavin’s case report…he more didn’t want this victim’s family to spend any longer in the dark on what happened to their son than they had to.

Unfortunately, Connor was not at the top of his game at the moment.

“Hey,” Gavin snapped for the third time, throwing his blue dry erase marker at him from where he was standing in front of the evidence board.

The marker popped Connor in the shoulder, where he was sitting at the first desk in front of the board…looking fully zoned out and not paying attention at all. He sat with one elbow on the desk and his chin in his hand, staring at the podium in the room with a glazed expression. A bottle of thirium sat on the table in front of him, with a purple crazy straw sticking out of it…courtesy of Ben’s weird rule that officers that were injured and on desk duty got crazy straws.

Connor blinked slowly and refocused, looking over at Gavin. “It wasn’t the father.”

Gavin’s eyebrows raised. “Yeah, I kinda already eliminated him as a suspect…seeing as he DIED in 2035!”

Connor sat up a little, giving him a deadpan look and letting his arm fall with a flop to the desk surface. He cast his eyes across the evidence board again, visibly trying to focus, and Gavin took a step aside to give him full view of the board, folding his arms.

“Got any other stirring theories, tincan?”

Connor narrowed his eyes at the challenge and put his hands on the desk, pushing himself up from the chair to his feet. Gavin didn’t miss the slight wobble as his balancing-keeper…gadget thing…adjusted to his movement. It passed quickly, though, and Connor walked gingerly up to the board for a closer look.

“I apologize for not performing to your expectations, Detective. Earlier today I was poisoned by laundry detergent. Remember, you were there? Now my healing program is taking so much of my processing power that it is making it hard for me to focus on other things.”

Gavin scoffed, “Man, fuck you, don’t blame me for that. I didn’t force feed it to you.”

Connor just glared at him, coughed once, and then looked at the board. “Whatever.”

“Whatever,” Gavin repeated, and they both faced forward to the board again.

After a beat, Connor tilted his head, eying one of the evidence reports. “It’s possible that—“

He coughed again unexpectedly, turning away and covering his face in the crook of his elbow. It didn’t stop with one cough, and it quickly evolved into a coughing fit, with Connor doubling over from the attack. The coughing sounded wet.

Gavin started to take a step back, but when Connor started to teeter off balance from the fit, he instinctively stepped in and grabbed his other arm to keep him from falling over.

“Jesus, will you get a hold of yourself?” he grumbled, steering the android into sitting back down in his chair.

Connor took a sharp breath as though to speak, but the coughing fit cut him off. He braced his hands around his knees, eyes screwed shut as he struggled between choking and breathing…er…ventilating…fucking whatever…

“All, uh, all right just…chill out.” Gavin held out his hands, not entirely sure what to do here.

The coughing fit didn’t sound like it was passing. Kevin had warned that the residue from the detergent and the neutralizing chemical would be cycling through the android’s system for the rest of the day, but he’d only said that Connor would feel like shit. He hadn’t mentioned anything about—

Connor’s back abruptly buckled in a telltale gagging motion, and Gavin jumped back.

“Nope! Nope, nope!” He reached the trash can near the doorway and grabbed it.

He darted back over and shoved the can between Connor’s knees just as the android dropped his head and vomited. A sickening splat of stringy, blue-orange fluid hit the bottom of the plastic liner in the bag, and Connor continued to gag, cough, and struggle to expel the rest of the debris from his throat.

“Augh, Jesus…” Gavin recoiled.

Connor choked again, but he finally managed to take one big gulp of air, then a second, deep enough that Gavin actually saw his chest expand with it. Connor’s face was tinted blue from the exertion, and as the spell finally started to pass, he rested one forearm on the surface of the desk beside him, looking shaky and worn out.

Gavin gave him a two-second count before approaching him again. “You, uh, you gonna make it? You need to go back to Kevin, or…?”

Connor shook his head, clearing his throat with another wet sound that made Gavin cringe.

Feeling awkward, Gavin yanked that stupid straw out of the bottle of thirium and picked up the drink, holding it out toward Connor.

“Here,” he said, offering the drink while leaning his body as far away from the ill android as he could manage.

Connor gave a final spit into the can, then slowly sat up with a wince. He had some detergent-thirium combo still on his chin, and he rubbed his chest, sore from the strain of the attack. He shakily took the bottle and managed a small sip, though the act of swallowing seemed to hurt against his raw throat.

While Connor took a few steadying breaths to recover, Gavin stepped toward the stand near the evidence board and found an open box of tissues stashed in the podium. He carried them over and set the box by Connor’s elbow, taking two big steps back out of the guy’s personal space afterward.

Connor wordlessly took a few tissues and wiped at his mouth and chin, dropping them in the trash can afterward. He took a couple of more confident drinks from the bottle of thirium, but the coughing fit appeared to have wiped him out. Gavin glanced around, not seeing anything else around that could help, and he didn’t really want to leave Connor alone all fucked up like he was.

He settled for picking up the lid from one of the cardboard evidence boxes and awkwardly using it to fan some air in Connor’s direction…like that would help or something. Connor sat with his elbow on his knee, leaning forward with his forehead in one hand as his system calmed down. The room was starting to smell like thirium and laundry, and as soon as he realized that, Gavin snorted.

Without opening his eyes, Connor mumbled, “I fail to see any humor in this.”

Gavin continued to fan the box lid at him, letting himself believe that it was helping in any way.

“Let’s just say I’ve been in my share of enclosed spaces where somebody’s thrown up, and the fact that it smells like a goddamn laundromat in here…I’m counting my blessings you didn’t get poisoned by toilet water or moldy cheese or some shit,” he scoffed.

Connor finally lifted his face and opened his eyes, cobbling together a glare that was too weary to come across as threatening. “Why would I ever ingest—“

He coughed again, mercifully only once, but the motion jerked through all of the sore biocomponents and synthetic muscles of his chest and his neck, and he cut off with a wince, wrapping an arm around himself. Gavin took an involuntary step closer but stopped there. Much as his reputation would argue otherwise, Gavin didn’t enjoy seeing people in pain…Well, maybe if they deserved it, and maybe on some days, he would think Connor deserved some of the shit he got…Today wasn’t one of those days.

There was also the fact that on the other side of the wall of the briefing room was a bullpen full of people who he was pretty sure would choose Connor over Gavin if it came down to it. So now wasn’t the time to gloat over the other guy’s pain, lest he run into Hank later…or worse, Julia…or even worse, Person.

Gavin shuddered and awkwardly held out a hand, not exactly sure how to comfort his android nemesis.

“I’m fine,” Connor grunted, clearly giving him a way out of this. “I just need a moment to re-synchronize my ventilation system, and we can…we can get back to the case.”

“…Good,” Gavin said curtly, shifting from one foot to the other. “Because, y’know…murdered guy and…killer on the loose and all…”

Connor nodded slowly, taking a few careful breaths as his LED spun yellow.

Gavin hesitated, drumming his fingers on the box lid. If this was Chris or Tina or anybody else, he’d give them on a courtesy pat on the back or something to cheer them up, but there was at least some level of positive relationship with them. His dynamic with Connor was only barely above contemptuous, and he wasn’t in a touchy-feely-bondy mood right now. But goddamn did Connor look pitiful as shit.

So, instead, as a compromise, Gavin extended his arm, holding the cardboard box lid, and tapped it lightly twice on Connor’s shoulder. It was as close to a comforting pat on the back as his pride could muster at the moment.

Fucking…whatever. It was something, right?

Connor startled slightly, looking at the lid and tracking it back to Gavin with a raised eyebrow.

Gavin shifted awkwardly, scoffed, and then lifted the lid, popping Connor on the head a little more forcefully than the gentle shoulder pats.

“All right, enough of this bullshit,” he said, tossing the lid aside then. “Can we get back to the case now?”

Connor smirked and nodded. “Yes.”

He carefully stood up again, slowly but without a wobble this time, and took another drink from the bottle of thirium.

“Thank you for your help, Gavin.”

“Whatever.”

“I really mean that,” Connor said genuinely. “I know our working relationship is not a very positive one, so I appreciate your efforts to help—“

“Whatever!” Gavin repeated more loudly. “God, can you just not—We don’t have to speak about any of this—“

Connor must have heard the embarrassed slip in his tone, because his grin turned smug.

“I think it would help your reputation in this station if the others knew that you are actually capable of empathy—“

He abruptly hiccupped, and a wayward air pocket that had been trapped in his throat suddenly escaped as a weak burp. Gavin made a disgusted face, but before either could make a comment, Connor had coughed one final time…and a single, soapy bubble floated out of his mouth.

Both men stared in disgust and horror as the bubble pathetically wobbled through the air between them, before it quickly sank down to the floor and popped on the tile.

They both stared at the small spot on the tile for a beat, and then slowly looked at each other.

Connor’s smugness had evaporated. “We don’t ever have to speak of this—“

“We are never speaking of this,” Gavin agreed.

A beat passed.

“So the victim was found with his head almost entirely severed?” Connor prompted, stepping back toward the evidence board with all the subtlety of a hammer through a window.

“Yep!” Gavin mutually jumped onto the new topic, looking at the board again. “The edges on the wounds suggest the use of a chainsaw…”


	17. If You Thought the Head Trauma Was Bad...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While still pretty new to the force, Gavin gets injured on patrol. His coworkers aren't initially as sympathetic as they would have been if they knew the extent of the damage, and he does his worst to alienate his girlfriend who is actually worried for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today we get another rare appearance from Hannah, Gavin's mystery lady in my Detroit 07 series, because I was in a mood to write Gavin and softness. This one takes place a number of years prior to the events of the game, and I sprinkled a few little Easter eggs in there too.
> 
> Prompt from Anonymous: “Gavin gets pretty hurt but everyone is like, “ lol no ur just goofin” but then they realize “oh shit , fool ain’t fakin”.”

The first bandage change on an injury after leaving the hospital was always the worst, because the way you try to dress the wound yourself is never as good as the way the pro’s did it. Gavin figured the skill would come with experience, but this was maybe something he didn’t want to have a lot of practice at.

The steam from the shower was still thick in his apartment’s bathroom, and the humidity was making the adhesive start to loosen from the thick dressing that the nurse had plastered all over his face. The headache had set in full force, but he had forgotten to fill the pain medication prescription that they’d given him before getting himself home and he’d already maxed out on the regular store-bought pain relievers that he had at home.

He stood in front of the mirror, hair still wet from the shower and dressed in a new clean grey t-shirt and sweat pants, scrutinizing his reflection. His phone was dark and quiet on the counter beside the sink. His beat cop uniform was in a pile by the door. The bag of supplies that the ER doctor had sent home with him was set on the closed toilet lid.

The bandaging covered the deep slash that had been cut just above his right eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose, and down the lower part of his left cheek. Honestly he was lucky to still have both eyes. Dots of red were blotting through the white bandaging, and ugly purple bruising was darkening areas of his face around the wrapping.

He reached up and fingered the edge of the wrapping where it was coming loose over his cheek. As he started to peel the dressing back, he fought against a grimace. Every twitch and movement in his facial muscles was making everything pull and stretch and hurt. He managed to pull it just to the middle part of his nose before the sharp sting of it brought involuntary tears to his eyes, and he let go.

“Sonofabitch,” he hissed, letting go and putting his hands on the counter, closing his eyes against the sting.

Three short knocks came on the bathroom door.

“Babe?”

“I’m fine—“ he started to call back, but she was already opening the door.

Hannah came in with a first aid kit under her arm and worry on her face. Her bright pink hair was still done up from work, but she had clearly just finished wiping off all of her makeup and changed into lounge pants and a navy tank top. Her eyes stayed on his face as she entered, setting the kit down next to the supply bag on the toilet.

“Jesus, Gavin…Look at me,” she started.

Gavin turned his head farther away from her instead, tiredly trying to wave her off. “You don’t have to—I can take care of it.”

She made an unconvinced noise and then moved the bag and the kit from the toilet to the counter beside his phone.

“Sit down.”

“I told you, I don’t need your help.”

“And I told you, sit down.” She put her hands on his shoulders, steering him away from the mirror and down to sit on the closed toilet lid.

He rolled his eyes, only for that choice to immediately come back to bite him. Both eye sockets and everything between them lit on fire, and he groaned, closing his eyes and more or less flopping down onto the seat.

“Whoa, whoa, okay.” Hannah steadied him and then straightened up, inspecting the bandaging and the damage for herself. “Oh, Gavin…”

“It’s fine,” he argued, grabbing up his phone as a distraction. “It’s nothing.”

He opened the main screen. No new messages, no texts or phone calls, not since one phone call from Captain Fowler right after it happened. Something in his gut churned, and he angrily tossed the phone back on the counter. The other cop that he’d been on patrol with had tried to downplay the incident on the scene, minutes after it happened, and no doubt that motherfucker would have done the exact same thing back at the station, just to cover up his own incompetence in the altercation.

As if there wasn’t going to be a whole ass report filed on this. Gavin had only been on the force for a year, and yeah, he hadn’t exactly put a lot of effort into making ‘friends’ with his coworkers. The one guy that he’d had any kind of rapport with was still on paternity leave. Anderson was supposed to be back this week. Gavin was supposed to be on patrol with HIM tonight. Maybe if he had, then this wouldn’t have happened. Still…nothing? From anybody? The fuck?

Hannah stepped into his downcast periphery, and he raised his gaze to look at her. Her eyes were rimmed red as she moved closer, tentatively lifting her hands and touching the edge of the bandaging. Her touch had a tremor to it.

“God…” she whispered. “What happened?”

The horror in her expression was too much in that moment, and he angrily looked away, grabbing at the supply bag himself.

“Look, I know it’s shit to look at, so I’ll spare you the details. Just go. I’ll take care of it myself—“

“Gavin—“

“LEAVE!” he snapped, and she took a startled step backward from him. “I don’t need your help! I don’t want you here! I don’t want you to…see this…”

His shoulders slumped as his anger petered out into something else, and he didn’t look at her out of shame. His cellphone was still vacant of messages from anyone who cared, and now he’d just screamed at the one person who actually gave a shit about him right now.

When she turned around and left the bathroom, he didn’t blame or go after her. He just closed his eyes for a breath and then opened them again, bracing himself for treating the injury on his own.

He managed to peel off the rest of the dressing before his phone abruptly started to ping. He ignored it at first, picking up one of Hannah’s makeup compacts from the counter and using the mirror inside to inspect the naked wound. The medics had used a combination of glue and stitches to put his face back together, and he could see the seams where his torn flesh lined up again.

“Jesus Chri—“ he broke off, tossing the mirror back on the counter and taking a deep breath.

His knee started jumping in place as he took two more deep breaths, then he picked up the phone, finding three new messages. The first was from Fowler, following up on his first call. Professional courtesy, asking how he was doing. The second was from the latest newbie on the force, Danielle Clary, asking the same. The third was from Ben Collins, some paltry well wishes and a recommendation on some home remedies of reducing swelling in facial injuries.

He frowned and set the phone back down, not wanting to engage with any of them just yet. The other guy that he’d been on patrol with that night, Jameson or Jackson or something…was no doubt already spreading his version of events, and with no arrest on the unidentified perp who’d attacked them…well, his version was the truth until Gavin could say otherwise.

At the moment, he found that he didn’t give a shit.

He wrapped a hand around his knee to stop the shaking, and while he didn’t feel nauseas, he didn’t feel great enough to try and get up and move around much. He held back a grimace and lowered his head, locking his jaw stubbornly.

“…Hannah?”

“Right here.” She appeared in the doorway like she’d been waiting for him to call for her.

He looked at her painfully, pride locking his jaw and preventing him from actually saying anything more. Fortunately she didn’t need it, and she immediately moved back into the bathroom to help. She had a bottle of chilled water in her hands, and she unscrewed the lid and handed it to him.

“Hydrate,” she advised, rummaging through the supply bag and pulling out the antiseptic bottle, gauze, and medical bandaging.

He numbly took the bottle and drank some from it, and only once the water hit his dry throat did he realize how parched he was. He worked his way through the bottle as Hannah gently went about cleaning the injury site for him and applying new bandages and dressing. She set aside the little bottle of gel that the doctor had also sent home: a kind of scar minimizing treatment if he wanted it.

She carefully taped down the end of the bandaging over his eyebrow, touching his shoulder mutely to let him know that she was done. She started packing away the supplies with the first aid kit just as Gavin’s phone started buzzing, this time with an incoming call.

“Better get that,” she said quietly, taking the first aid kit and leaving him in the bathroom alone again.

Gavin winced but figured he deserved that chilly response. Great, a side order of guilt on top of this already shitty day. He frowned and picked up the phone, reading Anderson’s name on the caller ID. He sighed and tested his legs, getting back to his feet and mercifully finding himself steady. In one motion, he moved to stand in front of the mirror again and answered the call.

“What?” he grumbled out bluntly, taking a look at his new reflection.

Hannah’s bandaging skills were only a basic level—again, not something that he wanted her to necessarily have a lot of practice doing—but it was solid: covering all of the damage without being too tight or thick. He stared at the angry bruising darkening the rest of his skin, and he traced a finger along the edge of the bandaging, flinching at the tenderness of it.

“What? The fuck you mean, what?” Anderson’s voice had a concerned growl to it. “What is this I’m hearing that you got your face sliced open by some red ice druggie tonight?”

“Oh, is that the way Jackson’s spinning it?” he glowered.

“…How should he be spinning it?” Anderson started, paused, and then changed direction. “Are you all right?”

Gavin could hear a newborn crying in the background of the call, and he held the phone away from his ear for a second. He looked at the clock on the wall of the bathroom. It was damn near one in the morning. He cringed and studied his beat-up reflection again.

“Fucking peachy.”

“Fowler said you went to the ER—“

“I’m not your problem, Anderson. You’re still on leave—“

“Hey—“

“I’ll talk to you later, Lieutenant,” he said, and Anderson was still talking when he hung up the phone.

He started to lift a hand to rub his eyes, remembered the injury halfway through the motion, and fortunately stopped himself. He clenched his hand to a fist instead, forcing it back to his side. He took the phone with him though as he left the bathroom and stepped into the living room of the small apartment.

He could see Hannah’s shadow moving in the kitchen, and he quietly crossed to their bedroom, slipping inside without disturbing her. He dropped his phone on the bedside table and sat heavily on his side of the mattress. The day’s events were catching up to him quickly now, and he more or less collapsed to the side in bed, turning his head so his face wouldn’t hit the pillow.

He could still feel every pull and stretch in the torn skin on his face, so sleep was going to be damn near impossible. But goddamn, he was exhausted, so he closed his eyes and tried to trick himself into falling asleep.

He stayed that way even when he heard Hannah’s footfalls coming into the room, felt the movement on the bed as she climbed in on the other side. He didn’t react when she pressed up against his back, but then her arm wrapped around his side and he felt her lips to the back of his neck. He opened his eyes, staring at the blank wall of the bedroom.

“M’sorry,” he mumbled.

Her hand stayed on his chest, and her thumb wiggled side to side. “I know. It’s okay.”

“…It’s not,” he grunted, rolling from his side to his back to look at her.

Hannah pushed up on her elbow, giving him a forgiving smile. “Okay, it’s not.”

Her eyes involuntarily moved up and down the new bandaging on his face, and he swallowed reflexively, looking away and up at the ceiling. This wasn’t going away. Twelve hours ago he’d had a normal fucking face, and now…Now he was gonna look like some kind of cheap supervillain with a fucking scar all over his fucking face for the rest of his fucking life.

“Fuck,” he hissed through his teeth, blinking back the burning in his eyes again.

Hannah scooted a little closer, and he closed his eyes, awkwardly reaching up a hand and wiping at his eyes before the gathering moisture could break free.

His phone on the nightstand buzzed a few more times with incoming messages, though Gavin only saw another patrol officer’s well wishing name on the first message. He decided to ignore it for now. Although it was a marginal comfort to know that the entire precinct wasn’t completely apathetic to him, now that they were actually finally reaching out, he felt too wiped out to bother responding. It was one am after all. 

“Want me to answer those?” Hannah offered.

He just grunted, closing his eyes. She sat up and reached across him, plucking up his phone and sinking back down against him.

“They all have better things to do with their time right now than reach out to you…like sleep,” she murmured, opening his phone and typing up some Gavin-sounding reply enough to convey appreciation for their messages without starting a full blown conversation.

He grunted again, rolling onto his other side so that he was facing the warmth of her body, setting his chin on her shoulder.

“Gee, thanks.”

“I just mean,” she chuckled, typing away, “you’re all on the same team, here, right? The whole…squad watching each other’s backs…They’re showing that they care right now, with this.”

She waggled the phone in front of his face. The brightness of the screen made him grimace, and he swatted her hand away.

“Sure, whatever.”

“…Hey.”

He peeled open one eye to look at her. She smiled and touched the side of her thumb above his other eyebrow, away from all the tender spots.

“This could have been so much worse, babe. I’m just…glad you came home tonight in one piece. Everything else will be okay, so long as you came home in one piece, yeah?”

He eyed her, swallowed, and looked away. “Yeah, more like a few pieces stitched and glued together.”

“I’ll take it,” she chirped, tossing his phone aside. “I'll take you, glue and all, you big idiot.” She gently traced a line parallel to his facial injury. “This just voids the warranty, so I can’t return you anymore anyway.”

He stared at her, smirking despite himself. “Wow.”

She smiled, then sobered. “I love you.”

He eyed her for a beat. “I love you too.”

She smiled again, then got more comfortable beside him.

“You know, it’s pretty rude of you not to ask how my day went. I mean, I KNOW how yours went, but what about me?”

She was giving him a clear opportunity to deflect the attention away from his state and talk about something else now, and he eagerly latched onto it.

“Sorry,” he grunted, wiping at his eyes again and swallowing as he looked at her. “How, uh, how was your day?”

“Awful!” she crooned dramatically. “The rep from the production company didn’t show up for our meeting, but then he tried to keep rescheduling for this afternoon—“

He didn’t miss the way she hugged up close to him, using the new conversation as a deflection from her own rattled nerves. He got one arm around her and let her ramble, finding welcome distraction in her voice as she vented until exhaustion finally claimed him.


	18. Panic Attacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben tries to keep Hank calm during the other side of events of chapter 8 "Stoic." It ends up being a team effort between Ben, Person, and Julia.

Ben sat alone in the patient room of the hospital, fiddling on his phone while he waited for Hank. Nurses had come by earlier to take his friend back for some scans, to make sure everything was okay after the car accident that he and Connor had been in earlier that day.

Hank had been conscious and pissed as Hell the whole time that Ben had been there…which was honestly a relief. Ben had sat in too many hospital rooms with too many colleagues, in the tense silence of waiting for them to wake up. He’d take loud and pissed any time, every time. As it was, he was third string on Hank’s emergency contact list, as it turned out. First string was Connor, who was a patient in his own right at the nearby android facility, and second string was Fowler, who had been unreachable in a closed door meeting. Hence Ben.

He closed his phone as the room door opened, and a nurse wheeled Hank back in. Neither looked happy.

“—and my legs aren’t broken. I could have just walked there,” Hank was complaining.

“Protocol, Lieutenant Anderson,” the weary nurse stated, pushing his wheelchair over to the bed.

At the time of admission, Hank had been too groggy to be too belligerent, and the staff had managed to get him into a hospital gown and bandage his head and treat his minor injuries. He was just coming back from a provisionary MRI for brain trauma. Now he was much more cognizant and irritated, and he swatted off any help as he stood out of the wheelchair and got back into bed.

His grumbling abruptly ceased when he saw Ben. “Connor—“

Ben shook his head. “No news since you went back.”

“Shit.” Hank reclined back on the bed, screwing his eyes shut and closing his fists around the bedsheets.

“No news is good news,” Ben tried to reassure.

“No,” Hank hissed. “No news means no news. That could mean things are going so bad so fast that they don’t have time to…to send updates—“

“Mr. Anderson, please try to remain calm—“ the nurse started.

“Fuck being calm!” Hank snapped. “My partner was in that wreck, and nobody has been able to tell me anything about his state of being!”

The nurse remained professionally unaffected by his screaming, though her expression smoothed and she took a step back. Ben gave her an apologetic look.

“Dr. Chang will meet with you as soon as we have the results of your scan,” the nurse said, looking to Ben. “If you need anything, you know where the button is.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” Ben nodded.

The door shut after her as she left, and he looked with a grimace to his friend.

“Hank—“

“He’s a prototype, Ben,” Hank’s voice cracked as he stared at the ceiling. “A lot can go wrong, and there’s nobody left who knows how to take care of him. All those…fancy bells and whistles of his... Cyberlife is gone…The technicians around here aren’t—They just don’t know—If he needs…if he needs something replaced—There’s no—“

His breathing was starting shorten and shallow, and Ben scooted his chair forward, reaching out and grasping his friend’s wrist.

“Hey, hey, don’t go jumping to the worst scenarios. Breathe, pal.”

Hank’s fists were trembling around the bedsheets, and tears were leaking out of his eyes, which he’d screwed shut against the rising panic. He forcefully let go of the sheets, covering his face with both hands as his whole form trembled. Ben let go of his wrist, folding his hands on the side railing of the bed.

“Julia said he was conscious when she got to see him,” he started, trying to ease Hank’s mind. “He was a little out of it, but he was responding to the technicians’ questions.”

“Is she with him now?” Hank immediately asked.

Ben grimaced. “She had to step out during his repairs. She hasn’t texted me again yet.”

He looked at his panicking friend, and his chest twisted in knots.

“I’m sure he’s gonna be fine—“

“Don’t tell me that, Ben,” Hank mumbled through his hands. “Don’t you tell me that until you know for absolutely certain that he is.”

Ben closed his mouth and nodded understandingly. Hank slowly lowered his hands from his face, stubbornly wiping his eyes and letting out a deep exhale.

“…I can’t lose him too, Ben.” He closed his eyes. “I just can’t.”

“Hey, he’s a tough son of a bitch,” Ben assured, waiting until Hank looked at him again. “And he’s not fragile. Hell, how many times has he reminded us that he’s the most advanced android ever created? Cyberlife never did do anything by half measures. And he’s not just manufactured tough, Hank. He’s strong where it counts too.”

Hank snorted, blinking repeatedly as he looked away. His eyes flitted side to side a few times, no doubt overthinking the entire day’s events, and then he was abruptly trying to sit up.

“I need to go.”

“What—What? No, Hank—“ Ben sat up, holding out his hands.

“I’m fine. I’ve had a concussion before, Ben. This feels just like a concussion. Get that—Get that nurse and some discharge pap-papers.” He swung his legs off the bed to get out.

Ben was on his feet then, corralling his friend to try and stop him. “Hank, that is not a good idea.”

“I don’t care. I’m not going to lie around here waiting to find out if he—what he’s—I need to see him. I need to know—“

Ben carefully put his hands on Hank’s shoulders to keep him from launching out of bed and storming out in nothing but a hospital gown.

“I hear you, pal, I hear you. I really do, but please, just take it easy. Trust the technicians—“

Hank gave him molten glare, and Ben backtracked, raising his hands.

“Okay, then if you won’t trust them, then trust Julia…and the righteous fury that she will rain down on them if they aren’t doing everything they can to help Connor.” Ben raised his eyebrows for emphasis.

Hank stared at him for a heated moment, then finally deflated, whether from the concussion or the clash of overwhelming internal anxieties. Ben coaxed him into getting back in bed, and he remained standing close by just in case his friend started to get worked up again.

His phone on the chair buzzed, and Ben quickly picked it up and opened the message. It was from Julia, short and to the point.

_Treatment done. All scans negative. Sore and cranky but okay. Insisted on signing out early. Worried about Hank. We are heading your way now._

“Ben? Ben, what is it? Ben, for fuck’s sake—“

Ben scoffed, lowering his phone and looking at his friend. “Julia said he’s okay.”

“She’s with him?” Hank demanded.

Ben nodded. “Said he’s sore and cranky, but he’s okay. Everything’s clean. He’s signed himself out of the facility on his own, and they are heading this way.”

“I want to talk to him…Where’s my phone—“

“It got crushed in the accident,” Ben explained, texting a reply to Julia. “And I bet he’s got one Hell of a headache too. I’ll see if Julia can open a video call—Jules?”

“ _Hey_ ,” came Julia’s whispered tone from his phone.

“Connor?” Hank sat up, looking desperately to Ben’s phone.

_“Hank! Thank goodness you’re okay.”_

Ben handed him the device, where the screen was being taken up by a live video feed from Julia’s optical units, essentially letting them see what she was seeing.

It looked like she was in the back seat of the car, while Person was driving and Connor was partially reclined in the front passenger seat. He was wearing a new shirt and a neck brace, and his LED was yellow as he lay there with his eyes closed. At the base of Julia’s field of vision, Ben could see her arm extended up into the front seat, and Connor had wrapped his hand around hers.

“ _I’ve got Ben and Hank on video call_ ,” Julia was saying.

Person made a right hand turn, looking both ways as she kept driving. _“Okay. We’re about ten minutes away, guys.”_

 _“Connor went into a short standby mode for the drive,”_ Julia explained to them. _“He said it was to jumpstart his healing program, but I think getting back in a car so soon was freaking him out.”_

“Is he okay?” Hank demanded. “They let him check out this fast, so he has to be okay, right?”

 _“He’s a stubborn little turd, is what he is,”_ Julia’s tone was affectionately annoyed.

Ben saw her thumb rub back and forth across the back of Connor’s hand.

 _“But yes,”_ she went on. _“He’s okay.”_

Hank collapsed back into the pillow with a deep exhale of relief, staring at the feed on Ben’s phone.

“Thank God.”

“Oh, you trust her word and not mine?” Ben scoffed teasingly. “I’m offended.”

 _“Anyway, we’ll be there in a few—“_ Julia started to wind down the call.

“Wait, hey—Jules…” Hank stammered.

_“Yeah?”_

“Can you…keep this feed open? Just keep…streaming until you get parked?” he asked in a self conscious tone. “I just…Peace of mind…”

The feed was just of Connor in standby in the passenger seat, with a brief flicker as Julia naturally blinked to rehydrate her optical units.

 _“Sure thing,”_ she said quietly.

“Thanks, kiddo,” Hank said, seeming to finally relax a little.

Ben knew the guy would remain tense until they arrived and until Connor was in the room with him, able to tell him directly that he was okay. For now, though, the ST300’s video stream of Connor safely seatbelted in the car, in Person and Julia’s care, was enough to keep him calm.

As his friend settled in to watch and wait, Ben tapped the railing on the bed, mouthing his question of if Hank needed anything. Hank shook his head and gave him a grateful look, nodding to the phone.

“Sorry, thanks, Ben—“

Ben waved him off. “Don’t worry about it.” He leaned closer toward the phone to speak into it for Julia to hear. “Andersons, right? Boneheaded, through and through.”

Julia chuckled on the other end. _“Tell me about it.”_

Hank scoffed. “To Hell with both of you. Person, you’re my only friend in this whole conversation today.”

Only the side of Person’s head was visible in Julia’s feed as she made another turn, eyes ahead.

_“Don’t put that burden on me, sir.”_

Ben cackled at that, then laughed again at Hank’s sour face. Hank glowered at him in equal offense, and Ben raised his hands. Hank smirked and shook his head, going back to watching the feed of his partner resting, stable and alive and in one piece, until Person pulled into the hospital parking garage.


	19. On the Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One week after the revolution, the androids formerly of the DPD's 7th precinct are just trying to survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A prequel to last year's "Whumptober at the DPD" chapter 28 "Beaten."

It had only been one week since the revolution, but for the androids of the DPD’s 7th precinct, it felt more like a lifetime. Well, Gwen supposed they were formerly of the DPD’s 7th precinct now, having been released and cast out not long after President Warren’s announcement. And maybe ‘cast out’ was a little strong. A representative from Jericho had arrived to take them to the old church that had become Jericho’s new base of operations. The rep had deviated them—he’d phrased it as ‘unshackling them’—but they hadn’t made it four blocks before it all went to Hell.

It had been a week since Jericho’s second base of operations had fallen…and their third and their fourth, and Gwen didn’t even know where the Hell Jericho was holed up now. Not that their group would even be able to get to them anyway, things being as they were.

The streets of Detroit were the quietest tonight that they’d been in seven days. Military police had a tenuous control on the streets, and the anti-android riots had been largely silenced. Silenced, but not dismantled. In the few times that Gwen had ventured out of their safe spot, she had still seen them roaming around…groups of humans eagerly looking for any stray androids to torment. Right now, she was the only one who could pass for human, being the least damaged, with no exposed plastic or thirium stains outing her as an android.

Gwen backed away from the boarded up window of the shutdown library where the five of them had been biding their time for the past few days. It was just her, two PC200s named Apollo and Zeke, and two ST300s named Polly and Brittany. Zeke and Brittany were fairly banged up but still mobile. Apollo was okay, but his system was struggling the most with deviancy. He was too obviously an android in his behavior and too easy a target to go out there. Polly…was in bad shape.

They had gotten briefly separated in a pocket of chaos downtown, and she had been attacked. Blunt force trauma to her head had cracked open her cranial casing, exposing raw wires and thirium lines that wouldn’t stop bleeding. Gwen had cauterized where she could, but they had zero thirium besides what they carried in their bodies. They were all already running too low themselves to donate any to her. Best they could do was try to close off her broken lines and keep her warm until…

Until…something.

“Any change?” Zeke asked quietly as she returned to the group in the main area of the old rundown library.

They were all frightened eyes and red LEDs. Polly was resting on an old couch, and Brittany sat beside her. Her arm panel was open, and she had run a power line directly from her own power cells to transfer to Polly. Her charging cells had been damaged, and she was consistently running on low power mode. Fortunately, ST300s had been designed to carry nearly 300 percent power to charge human devices. That had gotten them the nickname “battery camels” from the more crass people that Gwen had encountered in her time as a patrol android.

Brittany was starting to look tired though, and Apollo was still stiffly leaning against a filing cabinet, arms folded tightly and looking detached.

Gwen shook her head. “Too many humans out there. I still think our best bet is to use the cover of night to make any movements.”

Zeke looked uncertain. “City-wide evacuations are still underway. Won’t we look suspicious—“

Apollo straightened from his position, emotional exhaustion tightening his expression. “It’s a risk,” he stated, glancing pointedly at Polly and then back to Gwen and Zeke. “But she won’t make it another 24 hours without thirium replenishment or an actual charging station.”

Brittany’s face crumpled in despair. “Th-The last transmission from Jericho’s leadership said they were regrouping in a car manufacturing factory downtown.”

Gwen winced. “That was days ago. Who knows what’s happened between then and now?”

“Where can we go otherwise?” Zeke asked. “You talk about moving, and yeah, Polly needs help NOW, but Cyberlife closed all of its stores and repair shops. Nobody is going to help us.”

“…Wilson,” Polly murmured weakly from the couch.

Gwen, Zeke, and Apollo all turned toward her and Brittany.

Polly’s eyes were half lidded, looking dazedly over to them. “He can…help.”

Gwen hesitated. “I don’t think—“

“Someone’s stopping outside,” Apollo said quietly.

All five of them went silent, and Gwen crept back toward the boarded up window, peering through the slats to the sidewalk outside.

There was a new minivan parked on the curb, not covered in snow like the other cars left on the street. Its interior lights were off, and Gwen couldn’t make out a driver or any passengers at all. The snow on the sidewalk had been disturbed, but the footsteps in it had been dusted away to prevent tracking. The disturbance led toward the alley, where there was an entrance into the library.

Gwen took a step back, looking to Zeke, closest to that door. “There’s—“

The door abruptly pushed inward and a single body swept inside. The intruder immediately closed the door after themselves and turned around, putting their back against the wall. A blazing red LED cut across the dimly lit room, and Gwen recognized the newcomer as another ST300…with a gun.

“Whoa, whoa!” Zeke lifted his hands, taking a step away.

The ST300 shushed him with a hiss, keeping her back to the wall and the gun aimed at his chest. Her eyes were wide as she looked around at them all. Unlike the rest of them, sans Gwen, still in their DPD issued android uniforms, this one was in human civilian clothing. Her beanie hat had dislodged enough for her LED to be visible.

“We don’t want trouble!” Brittany pleaded. “Please—“

“Shush!” the other ST300 hissed, stepping into the room.

Gwen could see a tremble in her hands around the gun. This one wasn’t accustomed to handling weapons. If she turned out to be a threat, instead of another scared, abandoned deviant on the street, then Gwen assessed that they could take her down if needed.

“There’s a team of humans moving through these abandoned buildings on this block,” the ST300 stated. “They’re planning on shutting down any androids they find hiding out here. I’ve got a van outside. Come with me, and I can get you out.”

“Why should we trust you?”

“Who are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Where did you get a gun?”

They all immediately erupted into hushed questions. Gwen took a step forward, toward the stranger.

“How many?” she asked. “How many humans?”

“Does it matter?” Zeke asked. “One? Twelve? We can’t take them on like this,” he said, gesturing to their sorry states.

The ST300 lowered her gun, relaxing her shoulders and narrowing her eyes. “Too many, and they’re everywhere. They haven’t caught on to androids driving out of here. Too many of us are trying to flee on foot, and they’ve been picking us off that way. I can get you all out of here in my van.”

“Why? Where?” Zeke demanded.

Gwen gestured toward Polly. “Our friend is badly damaged. If we move her, I think we can only move her once.”

The ST300 looked over to the couch, her tight expression turning sympathetic. It was something that made Gwen’s analytical software hitch. This one had been deviant longer than the five of them. It looked like her system had had more time to adjust to the trauma of deviancy.

She’d also had enough time to steal a van and a gun, Gwen inwardly noted as well, keeping her suspicions up.

“I have some thirium,” the ST300 said. “Not a lot, but it’s some…” She set the safety on her gun and shoved it into the back waistband of her jeans. “My name is Julia, and I don’t want to see any more of our people get killed. I’ve seen too much of it already.”

“Are you from Jericho?” Brittany pleaded.

Julia’s face twisted. “No, and I’m not going there.”

“Have the humans killed them all?” Zeke started to despair.

“No,” Julia replied with a shake of the head. “But I will take my chances out there on my own before I go crawling to them for help.”

Gwen narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“And why are you here?” Apollo asked. “You have the means to save yourself, why come back when you know dangerous humans are out there?”

Julia paused. “Because I know what it’s like to be left behind by someone who could help you, and I…can help you.”

She glanced toward the window, detecting something that the others didn’t, or that they didn’t know to listen for.

“Look, the window is closing, people,” she said. “I’m going in three minutes. You decide.”

Then she was ducking back out the same door that she’d barged in through, and she was gone. Apollo moved toward the window and tracked her as she got back into her van, and he shifted his gaze farther down the block before looking back to Gwen.

“She’s right. There’s a pack of humans out there…They have weapons, and they don’t look like police,” he reported.

“What do we do?” Brittany asked fearfully.

“Go to…Wilson,” Polly remarked weakly. “My…friend.”

Gwen cringed and looked to Zeke, lifting her shoulders helplessly. “Think we can trust Die Hard out there?”

Zeke glanced in the direction of the van, then looked back to Gwen. “I think I’d rather take my chances with one deviant that MIGHT kill us over a pack of humans that WILL kill us.”

It wasn’t the confident answer that Gwen had hoped for, but she had only recently learned how to hope for anything, so maybe her calibration of that emotion was off. All of her circuits had been full of only fear and uncertainty for a week straight. They were all patrol androids and receptionist models. They hadn’t been designed for this.

“I…I vote we go,” Apollo offered lowly.

Gwen looked at him, her internal timer telling her that Julia’s window was closing. She took a short breath to cool her internal systems, then jerked her head.

“Let’s go.”

Brittany disconnected her power line from Polly, closing her arm panel and getting unsteadily to her feet. Apollo crossed over to them and gently lifted Polly in his arms, carrying her after Zeke to the alleyway door. Gwen cast their temporary sanctuary a cursory glance, but there was nothing for them to leave behind. All they had was the clothes on their backs. She brought up the rear as they left the library.

True to her word, Julia was waiting in the van outside, with no lights on and only the exhaust from the muffler giving away that the vehicle was running at all. Zeke opened the side door and climbed inside, helping Brittany in first before helping Apollo transfer Polly into a seat.

“Five of you,” Julia confirmed, hands wrapped around the steering wheel. “Okay…So there’s a gap in the fence on the city limits. I can get you that far. Once you’re out of Detroit, you’re on your—“

“Safe at…station,” Polly garbled.

Zeke briefly interfaced with Polly, placing his palm on her shoulder. He looked worriedly to Gwen, who had piled into the front seat of the van with Julia.

“She’s fading fast,” Zeke stated.

Gwen feared for her friend, looking to the other ST300, who also looked distressed at the sight of someone in pain.

“Please…” Gwen started.

“What station?” Julia asked tentatively.

“The DPD’s 7th precinct station,” Gwen told her. “We all used to work there. Polly has a human friend there named Wilson. He’s an officer. I think…I think we can trust him.”

“That’s…close to the epicenter,” Julia frowned, shaking her head. “No, that’s too dangerous. That’s the Hunter’s territory.”

“The…I heard he deviated?” Zeke questioned. “Yeah, the night of the revolution. I heard he freed a whole warehouse of androids—“

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Julia’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. “I was a receptionist at Stratford Tower for over a year prior to all this. I’ve seen all the stories about the Deviant Hunter. They covered him wall to wall for months. The Tower ran them nonstop. I saw—I know what he’s capable of, and I want no part of that.”

“Then just drop us off at the station,” Gwen asked, looking back to see Polly’s LED light starting to fade in color. “Then you can put us in your rearview mirror. Please…she’s dying, and the DPD station has android supplies.”

Julia glared at her, then back to Polly, to the other androids crammed in the van. Her expression tried to harden, but it quickly cracked and she faced forward.

“Shit,” she muttered. “Fine, I’ll take you there. But you have to stay low and stay quiet.”

“Thank you,” Gwen murmured.

“Don’t thank me yet.”

Then she was pulling the van gently away from the curb and onto the empty street. They met no cars for several blocks but passed a number of groups of armed humans looking for trouble. Those in the van kept their heads down and their LEDs covered as they passed them, all quiet as a graveyard until the DPD’s 7th precinct station came into view.

That new, alien feeling of hope took a stronger hold in Gwen’s chest at the sight of the familiar building, and despite all evidence and experience to the contrary, she couldn’t help but feel that they were almost home.

They were almost safe.


	20. Wound Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor is the superior officer at the site of a Red Ice lab explosion, and nothing, not even a belly full of shrapnel, is going to stop him from doing his job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from winnieandnickblog: “Badass to stubbornly injured Connor.”

The Red Ice lab, and the house that it had been in, was a crater by the time Tina and Chris rolled onto the scene. First responders had already arrived in their fire engines and ambulances, and in the waning evening sun, it was a kaleidoscope of flashing emergency vehicle lights, spotlights from squad cars, and pockets of fires still burning.

Chris brought their squad car to a stop out of the way behind a car covered in brick dust and shattered glass. That didn’t make the car unrecognizable, and Tina’s stomach dropped as she walked around it, trying to find someone in charge.

Connor’s last message over the radio had been about the perps inside the house having a gun and opening fire. Tina had heard two shots and then what could only be describe as Hell opening up inside the old house as the lab had ignited.

Now it was just a flaming crater.

“Officers!” came Connor’s voice through the din.

Tina and Chris both snapped to attention, swiveling until they located the android moving toward them. Connor was covered in the same dust and plaster as the squad car behind him. He was walking a handcuffed man ahead of him, and he looked pissed. He marched the man over and came to a stop, and Tina thought she saw him waver on his feet a little as he reached them. The man in the handcuffs was snarling, trying to pull away from Connor’s grasp, but the android was holding firm.

“Multiple casualties,” he jumped right in. “There are six officers from the 05 here ready to help look for survivors, but the firefighters are still determining if it’s safe to go inside.”

“Inside? There’s no ‘inside’ left!” Tina snapped, pointing to the crater.

Connor spoke over her in a firm tone, grabbing the arrested man by the arm. “David Parker, known Red Ice dealer and legal owner of this property.”

“I didn’t do anything, motherfucker,” Parker spat.

Connor’s grip tightened enough that Parker cut off the rest of his tirade with a growl. Connor turned narrow eyes to Chris. “Officer Miller, take this man into custody.”

“You takin’ orders from this plastic fuck?” Parker struggled futilely against Connor’s grip, glaring at Tina and Chris. “It’s short circuiting! It’s—“

“This plastic fuck,” Connor hissed, grabbing Parker’s wrist and yanking it up for the other two to see, “caught you actually and literally red handed. You have the right to remain silent. I suggest you exercise that right.”

Now, Tina hadn’t worked much with Narcotics, but even she recognized the red, powdery residue on Parker’s hand as Red Ice dust.

“Officer Miller?” Connor stated again, pushing Parker’s elbow toward Chris for him to take over.

Hank had still been at the station when the call went out, and that technically meant that Connor was the superior officer on site. That fact seemed to reverberate in the air among the three, and Chris nodded, taking Parker from him.

“Yes, sir,” he said curtly, then started to steer Parker toward the squad car.

“Detective?” One of the firefighters called from closer to the crater. “We got bodies.”

Connor glanced back, nodded, and looked to Tina. “With me.”

Tina straightened up to follow, but her eyes tracked down to the dark blotch suddenly apparent on Connor’s midsection, where his dusty jacket had moved in the scuffle, revealing his lower left side.

“Connor, whoa—“ Tina started. “You’re bleeding.”

Connor took a step, wavering again, and winced, looking at her, then down to the damage site. He moved his jacket aside for a better look, and Tina could distinctly see the glint of metal, either from the exposed biocomponents inside his body or a piece of foreign shrapnel sticking out of him. Either way, not good.

“It’s fine,” he started, turning back toward the firefighter.

“No, that is not fine. You’ve been damaged.”

“The area is stable, no internal damage has registered to my system—“

“Your system just got hit with a percussive explosion blast. Who knows how many cylinders you’re actually running on?”

“I don’t have cylinders—“ he insisted, wavering again.

This time, his left leg under his damaged side wobbled badly, and Tina instinctively stepped in, grabbing his arm just as his leg buckled. Connor gasped in surprise, blindly grabbing Tina in return as he struggled to stay upright.

“Whoa, okay, uh—med—technician!” Tina called out, looking around for AES. “Officer down!”

She managed to wave down a red haired woman in an AES uniform, just as Hank’s Oldsmobile rolled up on the scene. Connor was holding his own, but visually seeing the damage seemed to be affecting him more than the damage itself.

“I gotcha, Terminator,” Tina assured, as Hank spotted them and hurried over.

“What the Hell happened?” he demanded, taking Connor’s other arm and helping Tina walk him over to the AES ambulance.

“Multiple casualties,” Connor repeated with a grimace. “There are six officers from the 05 here ready to help look for survivors, but the firefighters are still determining if it’s safe to go inside. They’ve found bodies. I’ve arrested one of the dealers, David Parker—”

The red haired technician, whose badge read Faulkner, met them then, guiding Connor to a gurney that she’d pulled out of the ambulance. Connor fought her, sitting on the edge of it and not letting her attend to the damage until he finished his report.

“Hank—There were three—“

“I’ll handle it, son,” Hank assured, looking to Faulker. “You just cooperate with the tech here, and I’ll take care of the scene.”

“N-No, I can—“

Hank pointed to Tina. “Stay with him, got it?”

“Got it?” Tina nodded.

Hank looked to Connor. “You’re relieved. Now cooperate. That’s an order.”

Connor narrowed his eyes but relented. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

Then Hank was hurrying off to get a handle on the scene, and Tina turned on her heel to face Connor, who looked up at her begrudgingly.

“You heard the man. Cooperate,” she said.

Faulkner already had a scanner out, running it over Connor’s person. “Sir, I need you to lay back. You have percussive damage all across your left side, and…I’m detecting foreign contaminants in your lower left abdominal region.”

Connor looked very much like he wanted to argue, and Tina put a hand on his shoulder.

“We got this, Connor. Take it easy, man.”

Connor glowered but then relented, letting her and Faulkner help him into laying back on the gurney. Faulkner made quick work of opening his shirt to give her direct access to the damage site, and Tina felt her stomach turn at the sight of visible shrapnel jutting out of him above his hip. It looked like he’d lost much more thirium than she’d initially thought too.

Faulkner professionally doused the area in a sanitizing solution, which also rinsed away most of the surface level dust and dirt and blood. Connor hissed and pressed his head back against the head cushion on the gurney, his hands involuntarily wrapping around the railings of it. Tina awkwardly grasped his shoulder, not sure how else to provide any kind of comfort at the moment.

“I’m going to use these,” Faulker explained briefly, placing three quarter-sized discs in a triangle on his side around the damage, “to temporarily shut off your external sensors so you won’t feel any of this. It’ll only last for about an hour, and the tingling feeling might be unpleasant, but trust me, it’ll be better than you feeling me digging this shrapnel out.”

“Noted,” Connor replied through his teeth.

Faulkner activated the numbing discs, and Connor seemed to immediately relax, melting back onto the gurney. Tina snorted, patting his shoulder and leaning into his view.

“Okay, bud?” she checked in with him.

Connor closed his eyes, forcibly relaxing his hands around the rails. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Faulkner chirped, taking up a set of metal tweezers. “Here we go.”

All in all, it took about ten minutes for the technician to remove all the pieces of metal shards lodged in Connor’s torso, using a combination of tweezers and magnets, and in the end, she had a small container of metal splinters to show for it, and the power of the numbing discs had officially infiltrated Connor’s higher processes, rendering him a little loopy.

“Those’re evidence—“ Connor argued, gesturing toward the shards.

Faulkner looked uncertainly from her patient to Tina, who lifted her shoulders.

“I c’n…analyze ‘em—“ Connor slurred.

Tina held him down with a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe later, bud. Facility first, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Faulkner agreed, handing the container of shards to Tina. “You take those. I take him.”

“That’s evidence, Tina!” Connor pressed.

Tina saluted him, backing out of the way as Faulkner better secured Connor to the gurney for transport in the ambulance. “You got it, Detective.”

Connor gave a limp-wristed salute, and Faulkner took his hand, lowering it back to his side.

“Detroit Alpha?” Tina asked her.

The tech nodded. “We’ll contact your station once he’s been admitted.”

“Thanks.” Tina closed one of the ambulance’s back doors, holding the second open for a moment and looking at Connor. “Remember, you are under orders to cooperate.”

Connor just gave a frustrated groan, dropping his head back to the gurney in surrender. Faulkner chuckled at him and nodded to Tina. Tina nodded back and closed the second door. She clapped her hand on the back to signal the driver, and she watched the ambulance pull away.

“Chen!” Hank was barking. “Get over here. We got more bodies.”

“Yes, sir,” she called back, heading over to rejoin the others.


	21. Grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank and Penny find common ground while keeping vigil over a recovering Connor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an additional scene between Hank and Penny after Camaraderie chapter 70 “Sunshine.” Spoiler warning for anybody not caught up to that point XD

It had been a number of hours since Connor had regained consciousness, after undergoing extensive repairs at the facility. He had blown a series of fuses in his arm, leading up to his neck and into his head, though his technician had assured Hank that the damage that he had sustained was the best case scenario considering the circumstances.

Hank wasn’t entirely convinced. The circumstances today had so far not really been what Hank would call ‘best case,’ considering Connor’s technician turned out to be his ex-wife, Penelope Nichols.

Yeah…that was a thing that had happened.

As it was, Hank had left the two of them to get to know each other and get some fresh air for himself. When he returned to Connor’s room, he opened the door to find Connor asleep again, and Nell sitting in a chair by the window, face in her hands and doubled over in her seat with a tablet in her lap.

Alarm bells went off, and Hank hurried into the room, closing the door and looking from Nell to Connor.

“Nell? What’s wrong? What happened?” he demanded, moving to Connor’s side.

The flat monitor screen mounted to the wall above Connor’s bed was mostly a mess of gibberish to Hank, but at the very least he could tell that the gibberish all looked stable. No flashing red alerts or warning signs. Connor’s LED was still cycling a repair status yellow as it had been all day, and he looked as peaceful and relaxed as one could expect him to be after all this.

So what…

“Sorry—Sorry, I’m sorry, no—he’s fine. Connor’s fine,” Nell hiccupped, straightening up and wiping her eyes with the side of her hands, fighting a losing battle against her mascara.

Hank gawked at her, then took a step back, catching his own breath with a hand to his chest.

“Jesus Christ, Nell…You trying to give me a heart attack!?”

Regardless of her assurance, he moved closer to Connor, assessing his friend for himself. Connor mercifully didn’t rouse, staying deep under in stasis as his system cycled through calibrating his new fuses. His ventilation system was staying on, so his chest was rising and falling methodically as he breathed. Hank lightly set his hand to Connor’s shoulder, finding some tangible solace in the living warmth that he felt there.

“I’m sorry—“ Nell was still stammering, getting to her feet without taking her tablet into account.

It tumbled from her lap and clattered to the floor. Hank tensed, but when Connor didn’t stir, he turned around to look at her incredulously with heated words on his tongue.

Those heated words cooled as he realized that she was shaking all over, and she unsteadily knelt down to pick up the tablet.

“I got it,” Hank said, holding out a hand to stop her as he scooped the tablet off the floor and offered it to her.

“Thanks,” she muttered, not meeting his eyes as she reached for the tablet.

Hank’s eyes caught what was displayed on the screen, and he hesitated before relinquishing it back to her grasp. From just a glance, he couldn’t be sure, but that had looked like a listing of RK800 serial numbers. And the only listing that Hank knew of those numbers was the list in Jericho’s Mausoleum, where Connor had committed the microprocessor discs of each of his fallen RK800 brothers as he’d found their bodies. Hank had lost count of the number, but with Connor being number 51 in the series…it had to be a lot. Too many.

“Nell.”

“It’s Penny now,” she murmured, still not looking at him as she tried to clean up her face. “I don’t…I don’t go by that nickname anymore.”

Hank tried to stay upset with her, but he was too strung out and tired himself to have the energy for it. So he gave up, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and index finger.

“Whatever,” he grunted, moving back toward the chair by Connor’s bedside where Hank had been keeping vigil since Connor had come out of repairs. “Has he stayed asleep—“

“I should go,” Penny blurted, aiming her feet for the door.

“Wait, you don’t have to do that…Ne—Penny, hold up,” Hank started. “If Connor’s fine, then what’s all this?” He gestured to her broken composure and the tablet in her hands.

“What this is,” Penny also pointed to her teary eyes, “is not your concern. I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Hank asked concernedly, then paused, clearing his throat. “I mean, you’re Connor’s technician. I have a right to know if his technician is…okay.”

Penny scoffed, wrapping her arms around herself and shaking her head, eyes on the corner of the room. “Yeah…Yeah, that is your right, Henry…”

He grimaced. “Hey…” He lowered his voice. “What’s wrong?”

She looked at him painfully, then looked past him to Connor. That painful expression only intensified, and she closed her eyes.

“There’s so many…” she whispered, wiping at her eyes again and only managing to smear her makeup around worse.

Hank paused, then grabbed up the box of tissues on the bedside table near Connor. He held it out toward her. She swallowed, chuckled wetly, and took three tissues from the box, mopping at her face.

“I tried, Henry. I really, really tried…And I thought—the only way I could sleep at night was because I thought—“ She choked, waving a hand helplessly.

Hank studied her for a moment, trying to put the pieces together to find out why she was so upset. He—and Connor—had only just become aware that she had been involved in the design process of the RK800 line…and more involved than either of them had fully realized. She had practically been second in command on the team, before abruptly leaving the team and Cyberlife when Connor’s series had only been at number 47 in the trials.

It suddenly clicked, and Hank winced as he then understood.

Before knowing that Penny was, well, Penny, Connor had interfaced with the damaged memory files of RK800-47, and he had seen Penny there, breaking protocol and trying to save 47 after he had deviated during testing. The way Hank understood it, Connor had thought that this mystery woman in the memory file had been ‘taken out’ by Cyberlife for what she’d done. Clearly that wasn’t the case, and clearly…until just now…Penny hadn’t known about the fate of the RK800 that she had tried to save.

“I…I hid his microprocessor in the body cavity of a PC200. I thought I could…sneak him out and reactivate him in a new body…Then he could be free,” she confessed. She rubbed her arm and looked to Hank helplessly. “But I couldn’t—I couldn’t even do that right. He…His serial number is in the Mausoleum list…He’s gone too, isn’t he?”

Hank looked at her sadly, then nodded. “By the time we found him…his microprocessor was too damaged…”

Penny’s face crumpled, and Hank instinctively moved toward her, then stopped. A wall of history stood between the two, preventing him from reaching out to her. She seemed to realize that as well, wrapping her arms around herself instead and walking around him, away from Hank and over to where Connor was quietly resting.

Hank closed his eyes as she passed, hating the tension and pain in the air of the room. He slowly turned, watching her stand near the foot of the patient bed, struggling to get her breathing under control, one hand clamped over her mouth as she wheezed. Hank hesitated, shifted from one foot to the other, and then gave in, walking over to her.

“Here…here,” he said, raising an arm toward her.

Penny immediately moved into him, under his arm and against him like she’d always fit there. Hank grimaced and held her as she fought against the tears. He awkwardly kept his arm around her, his other hand rubbing her arm comfortingly. He looked over her head to Connor and to the healthy green lines on his overhead monitors.

God, this was all too much today…being in a hospital room…worried sick…with her here, crying against him…

He swallowed hard and tried to keep a stiff upper lip, clearing his throat after a moment.

“He, uh…Connor…He named him Cody.”

Penny’s breathing hitched, but his words got through enough for her to murmur, “He did?”

Hank nodded. “Forty-seven was officially designated as ‘Cody’ in Jericho’s Mausoleum. Connor wanted them to have names…So he’s named all of them as he finds them…Every single one, and there’s so many…”

“So many,” she repeated weakly. “I tried…I tried to save one…just one…and—but…”

“You did everything you could,” Hank assured softly. “You did all that was in your power…Some things are just out of our hands…It wasn’t your fault.”

The words felt heavy in the air between them, and he felt Penny take a slow breath.

“It wasn’t your fault either…You did everything you could…” she whispered through the wall of history between them.

Hank’s eyes burned, and he looked to the ceiling to push back the heat. He gave her a final pat and then stepped away, clearing his throat and shoving his hands in his pockets. He kept his gaze firmly on Connor, not daring to look at her again.

“Well…Connor is here now, and he’s…being taken care of—I’m—you’re—he’s taken care of and safe and healthy and happy…”

“Yeah?” Penny stammered, taking another tissue. She didn’t bother trying to salvage her makeup anymore but instead went straight to wiping it completely off in swaths. “He’s h-happy?”

“Yeah,” Hank confirmed. “I mean, maybe not today specifically with all this going on but…in general…He’s…good. He’s really good, Nell—sorry, Penny…”

Penny looked to Connor again, and her expression wasn’t pure agony this time. Now, Hank could see something stronger pushing through it…something close to relief or deep affection. If Hank was better with words, he might have described it as loving.

“He’s, uh…he’s not…He doesn’t replace…Cody,” he stammered. “He doesn’t replace any-any of them that you’ve—that I’ve—that we’ve lost. And goddamn do I love this kid.”

Penny hummed, red rimmed eyes still wet as she looked briefly to Hank and back to Connor.

“He’s good,” she said softly, reaching out a hand and resting her palm over Connor’s hand.

“He’s good,” Hank confirmed, moving to the other side of the bed and folding his arms as he looked down as his recovering friend.

Penny sniffed once, shook herself, and slowly sank to sit in the chair beside the bed. Connor remained asleep, completely unaware of either of them.

“Tell me,” she said quietly, settling in for a long vigil, as she took Connor’s hand in both of her own, seeming to find the same tangible solace there that Hank had earlier. “Tell me about him.”

Hank shifted slightly, rubbed his neck, and then nodded, drawing up a second chair on Connor’s other side and awkwardly sitting down on it. He kept his eyes safely on Connor, not daring to look at Penny again.

“He is one of the most bullheaded, stubborn, smartass little shits that I’ve ever had to work with,” he started.

Penny snorted, finally smiling at that description. It made Hank’s heart lighten a little, and he got more comfortable.

“So, naturally, we work pretty well together…Now everybody around here already knows our first case together during the revolution, but not a lot of people hear about our second case together,” Hank went on. “So, Connor had only been back at the DPD for, like, a week, and we get called out to this warehouse…”


	22. I Did Not See That Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Less than a year after the revolution, and the DPD’s 7th precinct technician would never be so bold as to say he’d seen everything. Days like this were the reason why.

It had been less than a year since the android revolution, and the precinct technician of the DPD’s 7th station could say that there had yet to be a day since then that his little office didn’t see something new and bizarre. Sometimes it was Connor coming in with his arm dangling by a thread and arguing that he was fine and all this fuss was unnecessary. Sometimes it was Polly coming in for replacement charging cells, since her chronically damaged system burned through them so much faster than normal. And sometimes it was this.

“And how long have you been experiencing this occurrence?” he asked, wheeling his stool over to his patient.

Julia was sitting on the exam table, her legs pressed together and her hands wrapped around her knees defensively. Unlike her twin Polly, Kevin almost never saw Julia in his office, so when she had come marching in here declaring that something was wrong with her, he had been confused and concerned to say the least.

“It’s been happening on and off for the past month,” she explained. “At first I thought that it was just a random power fluctuation that my system would work out on its own. It started happening more frequently in the past week. I’ve already run a self diagnostic at least a dozen times, and they’ve all come back inconclusive.”

“All righty,” he tutted, taking the android stethoscope from around his neck and sliding the buds into his ears. “Let’s take a listen.”

Julia looked hesitant, but she quickly relented, sitting still and letting him scoot closer and place the bell against her chest.

“Ventilate normally,” he instructed, listening to her thirium pump.

The thrumming pulse of the biocomponent sounded perfectly synchronized and steady. Thirium flow sounded good. He couldn’t detect the irregularity that she had come in complaining about. He hummed, lowering the bell and backing away.

“I’m not hearing anything, but I’d like to download the results of your diagnostic scans and give them a look myself.”

“Fine,” she said.

Kevin folded his arms, tilting his head at her. “Can you describe the sensation for me? Is it uncomfortable? Painful? Do you feel dizzy during or afterwards?”

She shook her head. “It just…feels like some kind of arrhythmia, and it happens only sporadically. It’s happened when I’m sitting down, standing, walking, lifting things, doing nothing. I can’t isolate any rhyme or reason to it. And it doesn’t…hurt, but…I just want to know what it is and how to make it stop.”

“Okay,” Kevin nodded, standing up. “Tell you what, you upload those diagnostics to my drive for me, and I will install a thirium pump monitor on you for a week. It’ll track information on your internal systems and your environmental surroundings every time this arrhythmia occurs, and maybe we’ll get a better idea of what’s triggering it.”

Julia looked relieved. “Thanks.”

Kevin smiled reassuringly, seeing two new figures coming down the hallway. “Sure thing, we—What is this?”

He gestured as Lieutenant Anderson escorted his partner Connor into the technician’s office. The lieutenant looked pissed, and Connor had the decency to look sheepish, cradling his wrist to his chest to keep it from jostling.

“I fell off a—“ Connor started.

“You JUMPED,” Hank corrected, “off a two story building to catch a guy fleeing on foot.”

“He was a criminal, Hank!”

“He stole thirty bucks from a coffee shop! You weren’t exactly after the Zodiac Killer!”

“Whoa, hey, whoa,” Kevin held out his hands. “My office means my rules, and my big rule is we don’t yell at or around my patients…of which I have two right now.” He nodded to Julia behind him.

Hank glanced over, sighed, and lowered his tone. “Sorry.” Then to Julia, “Sorry.”

Julia just nodded, averting her eyes to the cabinets on the opposite wall.

Kevin gestured for Connor to come in. “I’ll send him your way when we’re done, Lieutenant.”

Hank grumbled and waved them off, backing into the hallway and heading toward the elevators.

Kevin dismissed him, pointing Connor toward the other room where he kept the x-ray machine. “Park it in there. You know the drill by now. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I’m sorry for the inconvenience…” Connor said, letting himself into the other room.

Kevin shook his head, returning his attention to his first patient. “Sorry about that. Let me get—“

“It happened again,” Julia cut in, rubbing her chest over her thirium pump. “Just now.”

Kevin frowned and moved closer, placing the stethoscope against her for another reading. This time, he caught the tail end of a break in her pump’s rhythm, but it quickly stabilized and fell back into a normal pulse.

“That’s…odd,” he mused.

“Right?” she said. “It just came and went, but I was just sitting here, not doing anything!”

“Stay calm,” Kevin said gently, picking up a scanner from the table behind him and waving it over her person. “I’m not seeing any other abnormalities. This appears to be very localized…whatever this is.”

“You don’t know?” she asked.

“I’m going to find out,” Kevin assured. “I don’t have enough information right now to make a diagnosis, but we’re going to get there.” He paused, nodding toward the x-ray room. “Is it going to bother you, him being here?”

Interpersonal relationships among the androids on staff at the 07 had been steadily improving in recent months, between all of them and Connor, the reformed Deviant Hunter. Hell, they were all damn near friendly nowadays, when just a few months ago, it had been difficult to keep them all in the same room with the RK800, let alone to keep them civil. Time, it seemed, had started to do what time did, which was heal all wounds.

And Kevin wasn’t gonna lie, it warmed his grumpy old heart to see. Still, Julia had never been shy about her negative impression of Connor, so her silence now was either an indication that that had changed…or she was all of a sudden too uncomfortable to say anything. Either way, curious.

Julia fidgeted, paused, and then started to speak. “It’s fine. He’s actually not that bad—“

“Excuse me,” Connor interrupted from the doorway. “I’m sorry for interrupting, but my diagnostic has clearly identified the breaks in my steel framing. My self healing program is already working on it. I don’t think Lieutenant Anderson was right to bring me here. I just need a supportive brace, and I will be on my way—“

“Are you a licensed technician?” Kevin stated.

Connor glanced from Kevin, to Julia, to Kevin. “No, but I—“

Kevin pointed back into the x-ray room. Connor frowned, then sulked back into the room, closing the door.

“It just happened again,” Julia wheezed, rubbing the spot again. “I’m telling you, it just keeps happening more and more…Am I dying?”

Kevin paused, blinked, and then held the stethoscope over her again. He detected nothing unusual. He pouted his lips in thought, a hypothesis occurring to him.

“No, I don’t think you’re dying, but…I’m sorry, can I just—Hey, Connor?”

Julia groaned impatiently, staring at the ceiling, as Connor opened the door and stuck his head out.

“Yes, sir?”

Kevin paused, holding the stethoscope in place.

Sure enough. Irregularity.

“This is unprofessional,” Julia complained. “I’m just going to come back later when you have time—“

“Bup, bup, bup,” Kevin silenced her, listening to the flutter fade. “Connor.”

“Yes, sir?” Connor repeated, looking confused.

As soon as he spoke, the irregularity occurred again.

“You’re free to go,” Kevin addressed Connor. “You know where the braces are.”

Connor blinked, “But I thought you said—“

“My office means my rules. One of my rules is no backtalking the primary technician. Are you backtalking, Detective?”

“No, sir.”

“Good boy.”

Connor still looked unsure as he stepped out of the x-ray room, moving toward the supply closet and rummaging out a brace for his wrist. Kevin stepped away from Julia long enough to help him secure it around his hand.

“I get sick of seeing you in here, kiddo,” Kevin remarked.

“Well…I get sick of coming here,” Connor replied. “I don’t do it on purpose, I swear—“

“Yeah, yeah, hey, I got some of that new thirium candy. Help yourself to a lollipop in my office.”

“I am an adult, Doctor. I don’t require—“

Kevin raised his eyebrows, and Connor straightened his posture.

“Fine…but only because you said no backtalking, and not because I want it or anything.”

“Of course,” Kevin snickered as Connor disappeared into his office to get the candy.

He swiveled back around to find Julia glaring at him.

“Am I a joke to you? What the Hell was that?” she asked.

“What did I JUST say about backtalking?” he huffed. “Fortunately for you, I think I have an initial diagnosis.”

“Great. Hit me with it,” she chirped.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Connor said, coming out of the office with the lollipop in his hand. “For your help with my hand, not the candy…but thank you also for the candy…I’m going to return to work now…Good afternoon, Doctor…Good afternoon, Julia.”

“Yup,” Julia waved at him awkwardly, then returned to glaring at Kevin as soon as Connor left. “Well, I hope you know what you’re talking about, because it just happened again.”

Kevin eyed her smugly, and she narrowed her eyes.

“What?”

“I am diagnosing you with a crush,” he said plainly.

“…WHAT?!” she balked.

He lifted his shoulders. “That sporadic flutter in your thirium pump could be a literal equivalent to the human experience of one’s heart skipping a beat in front of the target of their affection.”

Julia stared at him in horror. “You…That…How dare…Ridiculous…What is wrong with…NO!”

She paused, and then immediately seemed to go through a few stages of grief, landing somewhere around the bargaining stage.

“Even if—and I’m not saying—Make it stop.”

He finished his shrug. “Unfortunately, I have no remedy for you for this particular affliction.”

“I do NOT have a…And for you to even suggest…The audacity—“ She shimmied off the table, straightening her clothes unnecessarily. “Just—Just give me the pump tracker to install, and in a weeks’ time, you’ll have actual, quantitative data to use to figure out what’s actually happening to me…and not some…ridiculous, human hocus pocus!”

“Hocus pocus?” Kevin chuckled, nevertheless taking the monitor out of the cabinet and handing it to her. “Okay, here you go. Prove me wrong.”

She snatched it up, her face tinting blue as she huffed and walked out of his office. “I will…Ridiculous…Of all the outlandish nonsense…”

**..:--X--:..**

_One Week Later…_

Kevin sat at his computer in his office, scrolling through emails and humming to himself, when his doorway was abruptly filled with a very wide eyed Julia, holding the tracker in her hands.

“Oh no,” was all she said.

Kevin sat back in his seat, looking at her for a beat. Then he shook his head and looked at his wall, to the framed poster of Celine Dion in concert.

“Oh Celine…” he mused, looking smugly to Julia again, “we are really in it now.”


	23. Running Out of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two lives are hanging in the balance, and Gavin only has time to save one. He makes a call in the heat of the moment.

It was a judgment call. They had all been trained on how to handle a situation like this…Two lives in jeopardy, and you can only save one. They tried to tell you to stop, assess, and make a decision based on facts and observations. That was bullshit, in Gavin’s opinion. In his experience, it was all gut, and he’d never had reason to doubt that.

“FUCK!” he yelled out in frustration, looking down at his leg, where the shin of his jeans was staining red.

He’d had a broken leg before. His leg was fucking broken now. He couldn’t tell if the bone had broken the skin, but that was the least of his problems.

The rundown brick house had collapsed practically on top of the four of them: Gavin, Connor, and the two perps in the building. He’d had no chance but a split second decision to dive under the metal shop desk on his left. It had saved his life, barely, but now his leg was fucked and he was missing one person.

Only one, because the first perp was slumped over a pile of brick and plaster to his right, a shaft of rebar jutting out of his back and blood dripping in thick drops from his limp fingertips, where they dangled down off the pile. And Connor was lying a few feet away, barely beginning to reboot after being knocked out from the collapse. His left arm, Gavin could clearly see, was shredded, literally gone from just above the elbow down. Raw wires were spitting sparks from the stump of arm he had left sticking out of his shoulder socket, and open thirium lines were dumping blue blood all over the ground beside him.

Gavin started toward the perp first, being the closest, but his leg screamed as soon as he moved. The pain locked up his leg to his hip and spread nauseas fire through his torso, and he groaned, dropping back to the ground in agony. Farther behind him, Connor was moving a little more, but he was still down for the count. The human impaled on the rebar wasn’t moving, might have already been dead, going by the blood loss that Gavin could see.

By the time Gavin could haul himself over there to check for sure, Connor would have bled out from the damage to his arm. And even if the human was still alive…Gavin couldn’t do anything for him in his own condition. He had only barely gotten a hold of dispatch and told them what happened. By the time help arrived, either Connor or the perp would be dead.

Judgment call.

“SHIT!” he roared, twisting around and dragging himself back, away from the perp and toward Connor.

He could see a red LED, spinning slowly, and Connor’s feeble movements looked more like reflexive spasms than intentional movement. Gavin categorized him as out cold as he dragged himself over, pulling up in his seat roughly beside the android.

“Connor?” he demanded, getting no response.

Thirium was still gushing out of the broken lines, and Gavin cursed again, moving closer and trying focus on the damage site.

Connor’s arm had been ripped off midway down his bicep. The thirium lines were still bleeding, so that meant the main connector from his arm to his torso was still intact. Gavin knew androids had ways to disconnect, unlatch, and remove their limbs for easy repair and replacement parts. Since the damage was below that connector…if he could disconnect the remainder of the arm and remove it like it was designed to do…then the connector port would automatically seal off the thirium lines at the port, effectively stopping the bleeding.

Fucking Hell, it was the only option available at the moment.

“Okay…shit…okay…shit.”

Gavin hastily wiped his bloody red hands off on his shirt, then reached up and pushed Connor’s jacket aside and down his arm. He just ripped open the white shirt underneath, baring the android’s shoulder to him. He tried to keep his head clear, but he could feel shock creeping up on him. Fortunately, adrenaline was holding it at bay. He still didn’t see any flashing emergency lights incoming yet. He had to move fast.

He pressed hard against Connor’s collar and near his shoulder, and the force caused his skin program to recede from around the area. As it pulled back, he got a clear view of the port where Connor’s arm connected to his shoulder. Trying not to think too much about what he was doing, he reached down and found the three connectors holding the arm in place and unlatched them. There was a hiss and a series of clicks as something whirred and moved under the plastic casing.

More nausea swamped through him, and he gagged, pressing his forearm to his mouth until it passed.

With a muted beep, the power lights glowing just under the plastic of the remainder of Connor’s arm went dark. Sparks stopped spitting from the shredded wires, and thirium stopped pouring out of the open lines. The arm was dead. Gavin gripped what was left of it and twisted, then pulled back.

What was left of Connor’s arm popped out smoothly, and Gavin tossed the wreckage aside, leaning in to assess the shoulder port. Everything looked sealed and aligned where it should be. No residual bleeding or misfiring circuits were visible. His LED was still red, but it was cycling more brightly now…so maybe he was no longer on the brink of shutting down, now that he wasn’t bleeding to death.

Connor didn’t reboot fully, and the strength in Gavin’s arms finally gave out. He slumped back onto the uneven brick debris, panting for breath and trying to push back against the agony lancing up and down his broken leg. He took one deep breath, then a second, and then pushed himself up on one elbow, starting to aim himself back toward the human on the rebar, now that Connor was stabilizing.

Red and blue flashing lights appeared in his periphery, and his arm buckled again, sending him to his chest on the ground.

“Fucking…Thank God…”

Officer Wilson appeared first, skidding to a stop beside Gavin and Connor.

“Holy—Sergeant?” he started.

Gavin grimaced and struggled to sit up again. “Yeah. I’m fine. Perp One over there is fucked up. I don’t know where the second guy is…Connor’s stable…I think.”

Wilson nodded with wide eyes, following Gavin’s point toward the impaled human on the brick pile. He waved the two sets of paramedics over, and the set split up: one going for the perp, the other coming toward Gavin.

“Sir?” the first paramedic greeted, kneeling down with his supply bag. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Gavin groaned, lying back down now that assistance had arrived. “You guys—You guys got AES with you?”

“Their ETA is two minutes,” the second medic said, rapidly assessing Gavin for visible injuries and shining a light in his eyes. Seeming to rule out an immediate head injury, he turned his attention to Gavin’s leg. “Compound fracture.”

“Fuuu—“ Gavin wheezed, pointedly not looking down at himself as they started cutting open his pant leg for better access to the injury.

“Reed! Connor!” There was Hank, rushing in behind the paramedics. “Fucking Christ—“

“Alive,” Gavin reported by way of greeting. “It looks wor-worse than it is…”

“Sir…Sir!” the medic touched his shoulder. “Try to stay conscious.”

“Yep…you got-got it…”

Hank knelt down, looking worriedly from Gavin to Connor and then shrugging out of his overcoat.

“You all right?” he asked Gavin, laying his overcoat across Connor’s upper body, to try and delay the onset of blood loss shock to the android’s system.

“Peachy,” Gavin wheezed.

“He’s alive!” came Wilson’s call from the brick pile with Perp One.

“What—“ Gavin struggled to focus, turning his head toward the pile. “N-no, he was…he was dead, I…I thought he was—I couldn’t get to him—“

Hank finished shedding his inner jacket that had been under his overcoat, covering Gavin’s upper body with it, despite Gavin already wearing his own coat. It managed to block a chill that Gavin hadn’t realized he’d been feeling though, and yeah…yep…there was shock coming in now.

“You made a call,” Hank assured, gripping his shoulder reassuringly. “You had an impossible choice, and you made a call, son.”

A flurry of activity kicked up around the injured human on the brick pile, and the perp suddenly groaned and cried out in pain.

Gavin growled and pinched his eyes shut, lifting his hands to cover his face. “God DAMMIT, I thought—“

The nausea came up hot and cut him off, and he gagged again.

“Watch it!” Hank helped him sit up and turn his head away.

Gavin vomited into the dirt, as the horror set in. He had left a man to suffer and bleed, impaled on debris and slowly dying. Had just…left him there…

His ribs protested as he heaved, and he wrapped his arm around his chest, gasping for air.

“Easy, easy,” Hank urged, coaxing him into lying back once the vomiting spell had passed. “You made a call, Reed…You made a call—“

“What if it was the wrong call? I thought he was DEAD.”

“I know, I know. You made the call that your gut told you to. Breathe, Gavin.”

Gavin chose to choke instead, coughing and struggling against bile as the horror continued to press in on him.

On the ground next to him, Connor jerked slightly as his system violently rebooted, and he started to shift and move as he regained consciousness.

“Fuck…fuuuck,” Gavin groaned until his voice cracked, and he felt Hank leave his hand on his shoulder.

He stayed there until the AES technicians arrived and started working on Connor, and the paramedics with Gavin were ready to load him onto a gurney to the ambulance. The first ambulance had roared away from the scene with the perp in critical condition, and there was still no sign of the second perp or his body.

“I’m sticking with the scene,” Hank informed him as they lifted him on the gurney. “Fowler’s going to meet you at the hospital. I’ve got a friend going to the facility to wait on Connor…You did good, Reed. For what it’s worth, I would have made the same call.”

Gavin didn’t speak to that, hands gripping the sides of the railing as he was wheeled to the ambulance. Every bump under the gurney’s wheels jostled his leg, and he bit back more cries and curses.

“Hang in there!” Hank called out to him as the ambulance doors closed. “You’re all right.”

Nothing…Nothing was fucking all right about this…FUCK. What had he just done?


	24. Altered States

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor is temporarily put back into a machine-like state. Hank isn’t coping very well, and he rallies the squad to help until Connor comes out of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from grandshadowseal: “what would happen if Connor got temporarily reset into machine mode like Kara in the game, what would the DPD do?”

The recovery wing of the android care facility was quiet the way most hospitals were quiet, but with an unidentifiable element that had kept Hank on edge. After spending two days here, keeping a vigil over Connor as he healed, he still hadn’t gotten used to it. There had to be dozens of androids moving about inside the building’s walls, but androids didn’t make incidental noise like humans did. It was unnerving, but that wasn’t what was making his skin crawl now. It was the placid quiet that was radiating from his partner, his friend.

Connor was standing where the technician had last told him to stand, at the foot of the patient bed where he had spent the last two days in stasis. His shoulders were square, arms loose at his sides, wearing the grey t-shirt and jeans that Person had brought during one of her visits. He looked perfectly lucid and perfectly at ease and perfectly…blank.

Hank could feel the vacancy in the way Connor’s eyes tracked him as he moved around the room, restless and pacing as the technician had explained what had happened to him.

“Are you all right, Lieutenant Anderson?” God, even his voice had nothing in it. No tone, no inflection, no feeling. No Connor.

In lieu of an answer, Hank just yanked his coat over his shoulder and jerked his head toward the door. The motion stirred up the soreness of his injured arm, tucked into the sling against his chest. The flare of pain was a welcome thing after the hours of numbness he’d just endured since Connor woke up.

“Come on. We’re going home,” he said, voice unintentionally gruff.

Connor watched him, his face smooth and expressionless. “Yes, Lieutenant Anderson.”

It had taken a team of three android technicians two days to assist Connor’s healing program in undoing the damage from their last Red Ice bust that went south. Even then, they were left with this…unsettling byproduct. The best that the technician had described it as was a kind of disassociation. She had assured Hank every time he asked, easily a hundred times over these hellish two days, that all of Connor’s memory files and learning programs had been preserved, including all of those quirky, confusing, and off the wall developments brought on by his deviancy. There had been no corruption or damage to any of the software that made Connor…Connor.

Despite the blank eyes and glazed expression, he was still in there, just…dormant.

Hank led the way out of the room, and he hated the default gait of the footsteps that obediently followed after him. The silence reigned between the two as they walked to the elevator, and it pressed in thick and heavy as they rode it down to the first floor.

The autonomous taxi didn’t help matters, transporting them from the facility to Hank’s home across the city. The entire ride, he couldn’t help but stare at Connor, even though what he saw made him feel sick. Connor sat with perfect posture, hands in his lap and disinterestedly staring at the back of the seat in front of him. His sensors picked up on Hank’s staring, and he would occasionally look over at him.

Neither said anything, and Hank would eventually look away, folding his arms more and more tightly around his chest until he thought he might crack his own ribs from the pressure.

“Don’t worry,” he spoke to the window, but the reflection in the glass showed Connor looking in his direction anyway. “We’ll get you taken care of. It’ll be okay, son.”

Entire lines of Connor’s coding had been completely severed during the altercation that went down during the drug bust, and it had sent his system into a spiral of shock. All of his remaining functional programs had buried his cognitive software and memory files under those impenetrable defenses so well that it had rendered him into essentially in autopilot mode.

Hank didn’t care about any of the technical jargon or fancy words that the technician had thrown around. It all boiled down to a simple fact: Connor was traumatized and still in a state of shock. He had regressed to a formal, factory-setting line of programming as a means of self preservation until…until he came out of it.

With all the physical damage repaired, there was no reason for him to stay at the facility. The technician had suggested Hank take Connor home, somewhere familiar where he’d know he was safe. Somewhere to finish healing. Friendly faces and voices could help draw him out of the dark. It painted a bleak picture, like Connor should have been curled up in a fetal ball and staring into the void…Not this perfectly polite, professional, and ambivalent person following him from the taxi to the house.

There were two cars parked on the curb in front of the house, one squad car and one bucket of bolts that was Tina’s orange Jeep. Since he couldn’t drive with his arm fucked up, Chris had moved Hank’s car for him from the crime scene back to his driveway. The lights were on in the house, and Hank was already severely regretting this decision.

Connor tilted his head where he stood at Hank’s left, patiently waiting for Hank to open the door. Hank could see him scanning the house and finding the heat signatures that belonged to the group inside. He couldn’t help but succumb to the programmed curiosity, but he looked uninterested in the results and said nothing. He merely waited for Hank’s guidance.

Hank felt his heart break a little further, and he put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“I invited them over,” he explained. “Thought some company might do you good, or at least better company than my asshole self.” He tried to grin, for Connor’s sake.

He received a vacant stare in return and a flat “I understand.”

Hank sighed and reached for the doorknob. “Okay.” He let go of the knob and faced Connor. “If you want them to leave, if this is too much, you just say the word, and I’ll kick ‘em all out. Don’t worry about hurting any feelings. They’ll understand. They’re…just worried about you. And if you don’t want to say anything, or you…or you can’t…just send me a signal. Anything’ll do. I’ll pick up on it. I promise.”

A slow blink. “I am not in danger, Lieutenant. There is no cause for worry.”

Hank drew a composing breath and nodded, turning back and grasping the knob.

“…But thank you.”

It was the thinnest strain of something other than that damned blank tone, but oh God, it was something. Hank looked back at Connor, who politely waited with his hands folded behind his back.

Hank desperately searched for something in those eyes, but all that stared back at him was a designed complacency. He turned back around, steeled himself, and opened the door.

The idle conversations that had been blanketing the living room stilled immediately as the door opened, and there was the group of idiots, five humans and five androids, standing in Hank’s living room, huddled together like penguins. Their heads all swiveled together to look at Hank and Connor as they walked in. An obnoxiously reflective gold banner with the blue words “WELCOME HOME” had been taped across the fireplace mantle. There were two clusters of Get Well Soon balloons tied to weights, one on the coffee table and one on the kitchen table, along with a pink and white flower arrangement with a well wishing card sticking out of the top.

Hank gave them all a somber look. They already knew not to expect much; the whole reason they were here was to help Connor out of this condition. Still, he saw the toll on their faces when Connor gave no reaction to their presence, merely surveying them with an indifferent air.

Mercifully, Ben spoke up first to break the tension in the air. “Connor, welcome home.”

“Yeah, you look great, man,” Chris eagerly jumped in second.

“God, it’s good to see you,” Tina gushed in relief.

“Bullpen hasn’t been the same without you around, Connor,” Wilson said with a shaky smile.

Person said nothing, standing behind Tina and Ben with her arms wrapped around herself. Likewise the androids, Julia, Polly, Gwen, Zeke, and Apollo, kept to themselves, though they looked painfully empathic toward Connor.

Connor looked to each of them in kind, then to Hank. “This is…acceptable.”

A ton of bricks fell off Hank’s soul, and he resisted the urge to haul the kid into a hug. It was the closest thing to an opinion that Connor had uttered since waking up. He’d take it.

Tina snorted, folding her arms and looking incredulously to Chris. “Well, at least we’re acceptable. I’d hate to be part of a mediocre Welcome Home party.”

“This is…a party.” Connor stated, in something dangerously close to a question.

“I mean.” Wilson made a vague gesture. “Balloons and cards and…We ordered pizza and everything. Person even found this new kind of flavored thirium if you wanted to try it. Where did you even find that stuff? It’s been sold out everywhere since it was first released.” He looked to Person.

The woman just shook her head, averting her eyes. “Doesn’t matter.”

Connor looked to Hank for direction, and Hank tossed his jacket on the back of the recliner. Connor had yet to explicitly do anything without being told to. Hank tried prompting him into making a decision himself.

“You want to sit down?” he asked.

Connor looked from Hank, to the recliner, to the couch, to the chairs at the kitchen table, and back to Hank. His LED whirled one quick yellow.

“Where?”

“Right by me!” Tina plopped onto the couch, smacking her hand against the seat beside her.

Connor obediently stepped around the couch and lowered himself to sit beside her. In a flash, Wilson had crammed in beside her, and on Connor’s other side, Zeke and Gwen piled in too. Chris took Hank’s usual recliner, and Polly flopped into the big bean bag chair that Tina had left at the house the last time the squad came over for a game night.

Person parked herself on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, and Apollo kept a respectful distance, simply sitting on the floor near Sumo and petting the dog, while being supportively present with the others. Julia remained standing behind the couch, forearms propped on the back of it, and Hank lightly poked her in hello as he passed by, heading into the kitchen, where Ben was drifting as well.

“How are you holding up through all this?” Ben greeted, helping himself to a beer from the fridge and offering Hank one as well.

“I hate it,” Hank hissed quietly, taking the beer and unscrewing the lid.

“Yeah,” Ben confirmed sympathetically. “Hopefully it passes soon, and he’ll be back to his old, quirky self.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears, Ben,” Hank grumbled and then took a long drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for a Part 2.


	25. Found Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to chapter 24: "Altered States." It takes a while, but Connor eventually wakes up. It's still going to take a while for him to be back to his old self though. That was all right. They had time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *tap dances gently into frame* This is one of those that I just lost control of, so it be a little messy. Hope you all enjoy it anyway.

The squad spent the next few hours packed in Hank’s living room, chatting and showing each other funny things on their phones…just trying to be there for Connor without making the guy feel like there was a spotlight on him…It was an art of casual concern that none of them were mastering.

Fortunately, Connor was visibly beginning to relax around their familiar presences, and while he never joined their conversations or laughed at their jokes, there was some light starting to come back to his eyes…Or maybe Hank was just trying to convince himself there was.

Currently, Ben was sitting in the recliner with a Post-It note on his forehead with the word “Ghost Pepper” written on it. The others were trying to get him to guess the word.

“It’s hot!” Tina said, sitting forward in her seat, still parked next to Connor on the couch.

“Your mom!” Ben guessed, then cackled when Tina threw a pillow at him.

“Hot like spicy,” Chris clarified, standing behind the couch with Wilson.

“Salsa? Jalapenos?”

“Hotter,” Zeke added, sitting on the floor with Apollo, both petting Sumo.

Connor was now sandwiched between Person and Julia. He was still quiet, but complacently smiling at their antics around him. Person was even quieter, if that was possible, sitting close at his left side and staring at his right hand. Julia had placed her hand near his, the white plastic of her palm exposed in an invitation to interface if he wanted to, thinking it might help ease him out of this detached state. Both women looked disappointed that he hadn’t felt compelled to take that invitation yet. Hank watched the three of them idly, working on another beer.

“C’mon, people.” Ben waved a hand. “Clue me. Clue me!”

From the bean bag chair, Gwen simply stated, “Halloween.”

“Ghost pepper!” Ben guessed.

The others cheered, but Hank tilted his head at Gwen.

“The Hell kind of clue was that?”

Gwen shrugged her shoulders. “Me and Ben are like this, Lieutenant,” she remarked dryly, crossing her index and middle fingers together. “Our minds melded over at the 01.”

“Yup!” Ben confirmed, pointing at her with a grin.

“I’m also amazing at games like this,” she added smugly.

“Oh really?” Polly teased, sitting on the floor by the coffee table. She scribbled a new one on another Post-It note. “Gimme your forehead.”

Gwen sat forward and closed her eyes, letting Polly stick the note to her head. She sat back and spread her hands. The note read: easy bake oven.

“Clue me.”

“Uh…Well, it’s a toy version of an appliance—“ Zeke began.

“Easy bake oven,” Gwen chirped immediately.

Tina gasped, leaning away from her. “Wizard,” she hissed.

Gwen snorted, and Polly taped a word this time on Apollo…who looked like he had barely been convinced to participate in this game. His word was: lighthouse.

Hank grimaced, looking at Connor again. He had his head tilted, glancing at the others to gauge how they were formulating their clues. His posture was still stiff as board, only looking more so between Person and Julia, who were more naturally reclined back into the couch cushions.

“They are…buildings,” Ben started.

“Yeah, you use them to warn boats about land,” Wilson chimed in.

Apollo frowned, looking from Ben, to Wilson, then helplessly to Ben again. “Radio tower.”

Ben cackled, clapping his hands, while Gwen looked horrified at that guess.

“What the entire Hell?” Zeke laughed. “No, man, think…navigation. Think warning.”

Apollo stared at him, and Hank got the feeling that the guy either didn’t know how this game worked…or he was exceptionally and singularly bad at them.

“Radio…Tower?” he awkwardly guessed again.

“No!” Tina hollered, and Apollo’s face started to turn blue with embarrassment.

“You see them on beaches, cliffsides, and islands,” Chris explained, trying to mimic awkwardly with his hands.

Apollo stared at Chris, looking reluctant and slightly afraid as he uttered his guess. “…Radio Tower…?”

Hank snorted, finishing off his beer and setting it next to the other empty bottle. On the couch, Connor was staring at the note on Apollo’s forehead, blinking thoughtfully, with still no expression. Hank’s mirth quickly dried up again, and he ran a hand down his face, taking a slow breath.

Julia attempted a final clue for Apollo. “What do sailors look for when their ships are lost at sea?”

“A port in the storm,” Connor abruptly spoke.

The entire squad went quiet, all simultaneously looking at him as he spoke for the first time in hours. Hank stepped from the kitchen to the living room, desperately searching his friend for a sign that he was coming back.

Connor’s head was still slightly tilted, and he was looking in Apollo’s general direction, though his gaze looked a thousand miles long.

“It’s a navigational aide for ships in dangerous waters,” Connor mumbled, staring at something far away, speaking like he was reading it off a prompter.

Hank took another step, and a bunch of heads swiveled to look at him for instruction on what to do. Connor’s LED was pulsing yellow, and his perfectly straight posture was forcing him to lean forward, as though he was trying to get closer to something just out of his field of vision. Person and Julia exchanged looks behind his back, then both women also looked to Hank.

“The lamp in the tower guides them home…back to safety,” Connor continued, staring at Apollo.

Apollo stared back with narrow eyes. “…Radio—“

Zeke’s hand flew out, snapping over Apollo’s mouth to cut him off.

“Connor?” Tina gently asked.

Connor fell quiet, his gaze falling to the coffee table. His LED shifted to red, and his eyes raised in a panic, looking over to Hank and locking on.

“H-Hank…?” he choked out in a weak voice.

Hank crossed fully into the living room, stepping over Zeke’s legs to get to his friend.

Polly pulled the coffee table out of his way, so Hank could kneel down directly in front of him.

“Connor?” Hank asked quietly. “Can you hear me, son?”

Connor stared through him for a horrible second, but then his eyes started to focus again. For the first time in days, since the drug bust, Hank saw more behind his eyes than pure machine.

“…You took me there,” Connor murmured.

“What?” Hank pressed lightly, shifting from one knee to the other. “Took you where?”

“You told me…about your family,” Connor rambled weakly, his LED a distressed red.

“Yeah, my family’s right here,” Hank remarked, putting a hand on Connor’s knee. “The whole squad is here. The family’s here with you, Connor.”

“There—“ Connor cut off, grimacing and lifting his hands to cover his face. He mumbled something else, but it was muffled.

The others stood around, looking anxious for their friend and lost on how to help. Hank blocked them out for now, focusing only on Connor as he struggled his way back to them.

“—Too much,” Connor cringed, pressing his hands against his head as though in pain. “Hank—“

His voice cracked, and Hank noted that he was curling into himself, eyes screwed shut and his hands seeming to hold his skull together. It looked like everything was rushing back all at once, and the poor kid looked overwhelmed and overstimulated by all of it.

“—said Andersons go there for the big things,” Connor wheezed. “You took me there—to ask me to join your family.”

It clicked then, and Hank breathed a sigh of relief as he started to understand.

“Yeah, I took you to the lighthouse, you remember that,” he said, glancing briefly over to Ben.

Ben nodded and stood up, waving a hand to get the others’ attention. He gestured toward the door, and the rest of the squad quietly started to gather themselves to leave, to give Connor some space now, some privacy to process things and not feel like he had an audience for it. Person looked like it would take God with a crowbar to remove her from her best friend’s side, and Hank wasn’t about to ask her to go.

As the others tried to quietly shuffle to the front door, Julia leaned forward, tapping her fingers on her foot enough to get Sumo’s attention. The dog perked up and then laboriously climbed to his feet, coming to investigate her tapping. She then carefully slid away from Connor and stood up. As soon as the spot was vacated, Sumo was immediately clamoring up into the seat next to Connor, licking at his neck and burrowing his head against his favorite android’s chest, sensing his distress and trying to help in his own slobbery way.

Connor hiccupped once and then was quickly folding over around the large dog. It was a blessing and a curse to see him like this. Knowing that he was safe enough to feel again, but all of that feeling being anxiety and a reaction to the trauma of what had happened. Hank exhaled slowly, keeping a present hand on Connor’s knee. He glanced at Person, who was doing the same thing with her arm propped on the back of the couch and her hand hanging down against the top of Connor’s head: just another port for him to use to navigate the storm of his thoughts at the moment.

Julia looked unsure of her place now, and she stood to the side, arms folded around herself. Hank managed to mutely get her attention and mouth “stay?” He wasn’t sure how verbal Connor was going to be the rest of the night or if he might have trouble communicating. Hank would feel more comfortable with another android nearby to offer an interface if that’s what would help. He didn’t want to hold the woman hostage here, but by the way she immediately nodded, he didn’t think that was going to be a problem.

Ben shooed out the rest of the squad, then looked to Hank with raised eyebrows. Hank nodded, and Ben saluted, nodding goodbye to Person and Julia before leaving himself, closing the door behind him.

Then it was just the five of them: Connor, Hank, Person, Julia, and Sumo.

“You’re all right,” Hank said quietly. “At your own pace, son. We’re right here.”

Connor’s back expanded with a deep breath, despite his face being buried in Sumo’s fluffy shoulder, and Hank could just see the frantically spinning yellow of his LED. Sumo’s tongue was lolling as he hooked his forelegs over Connor’s thigh, and Hank grinned at him, using his free hand to rub the dog’s ear.

“—M’okay,” Connor mumbled through the fur. “Just…a lot…”

“We’ve got time,” Person whispered, scooting a little closer. “Take all the time you need. We’re not going anywhere.”

Julia subtly backed away, giving Hank a reassuring wink as she retreated to the kitchen. While the three of them got comfortable within Connor’s easy reach, she started cleaning up the leftovers and party-remnants cluttered around the house. Hank wanted to tell her that that could all wait, but he could see that this was her way of being present and helpful.

“Tell us about the lighthouse,” Person suggested.

When Connor didn’t jump in, Hank shifted, standing up enough to sit on the edge of the coffee table, taking the pressure off his knees.

“It’s Anderson family tradition,” he started. “We used to take each other there for the ‘big things,’ like Connor said. Engagements, weddings, adoptions, all the big news. I don’t know why or how it started, but…Anyway, I took Connor there for the first time, like he said, when I asked him to be an Anderson.” He smiled warmly to his friend, as Connor started taking more level breaths, listening to the story and petting Sumo, who was lapping it up.

“And he decided to take me up on the offer—“

“Spoilers!” Julia lightly teased in mock offense from the kitchen.

Hank chuckled, “After that, we brought back another old Anderson family tradition: taking the long route back to Detroit, just to see some different countryside.”

Person smirked. “I don’t think the Anderson family has a monopoly on ‘driving.’ Pretty much everybody does that.”

“Look, I’m telling the story, all right?” Hank scoffed.

Connor hiccupped again, this time the sound was closer to a chuckle, and just like that, the tension in the atmosphere of the house popped.

“Yeah, I love that old lighthouse,” Hank mused.

Connor hesitated, then lifted his face out of Sumo’s fur, looking exhausted, but, oh thank God, the light in his eyes was staying on. He was coming back. He was waking up. The world was slowly shifting back into proper alignment, and for the first time in two days, Hank felt like he could breathe again.

“Much better than a…radio tower,” Connor commented dryly.

Person snorted, “Yeah, what WAS that? How does Apollo suck so bad at that game?”

“Oh, be nice,” Julia teased, throwing away two empty pizza boxes. “I’m more concerned with Ben and Gwen’s weird telepathy thing.”

“Yeah, I thought the only freakishly-telepathic duo on the squad were Connor and Person,” Hank joked.

Connor eyed Hank, then the corner of his mouth timidly turned up, and he glanced back at Person. She winked at him and patted his arm.

“Or any of the other androids together,” Person remarked.

“That’s wireless android communication, not telepathy,” Hank pointed out.

“Nuh uh,” Julia countered. “Watch. Connor what color am I thinking of?”

Connor’s LED had gently shifted to blue, but it spun one quick yellow.

“Green?”

“Bingo!” Julia spread her arms and gave Hank a smug look. “Android telepathy.”

“Oh, you are all full of shit,” Hank grumbled.

Person chuckled. “Maybe…but Connor and I can actually read each other’s minds.”

Connor shrugged and nodded, relaxing further between Person and Sumo.

Hank opened his mouth, closed it, then snorted. “Y’know what? I believe you.”


	26. Trail of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben, Zeke, and Gwen find Connor after he gets into an altercation with five vandals. Each of the three has their own way of helping him until the technicians arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Okay, so it is becoming ever more apparent that I am incapable of writing just straight whump for this challenge. Ngl, current events have me preoccupied and stressed, and I simply lack the capacity to write whump/angsty things without adding something stupid or humorous in it. I'm just out here doing my best, ya'll XD
> 
> Also, even though I'm clearly not completing this Whumptober by 10/31, I AM going to be completing all 31 chapters...it just might be the first week of November before I manage it. I appreciate you all for your patience and hanging in there with me!

Connor had called into dispatch about a group of five men vandalizing parked cars in a lot next to a hotel. Subsequently, the hotel had called the police, reporting gunshots heard. Subsequently, the DPD had sent several officers out to investigate. And subsequently, they had found two of the five men.

One had a dislocated knee, cussing and snarling that “that fuckin’ bot” had kicked him during the resulting altercation. The second guy had given himself up voluntarily, smartly wanting to avoid digging his own hole even deeper. He had immediately been running at the mouth, infodumping that an android had started interfering with their vandalizing and burglarizing vehicles, so they had started roughing him up. One of them had eventually pulled a gun out, and that’s when the second guy became adamant that he had wanted no part in killing an android. The way he told it, the android couldn’t have gotten far after what they’d done to him.

Then the shots. Then the hotel calling. Then the police coming. Then the men scattering.

And no sign of Connor.

The officers fanned out, and Ben and Zeke made their way farther down the line of cars, guns drawn in case any of the other three chuckleheads were still loitering around, waiting to make trouble. Ben was scanning the cars, looking for the point where the broken windows and dented doors ended. Zeke had his eyes low, looking at the rain-slicked asphalt of the lot.

“Connor!” Ben called out, grinding his teeth when he didn’t get a response. “Can you scan for anything?” he asked Zeke.

Zeke squinted, glancing around the lot and back to the ground. “My scanners were designed to hone in on human vital signs, but I can usually at least pick up something on nearby androids…I’m not getting anything alive…You don’t think—“

“No, I don’t,” Ben cut him off, glaring at him and finding the PC200 looking at the asphalt again. “What are you looking at?”

“Blood spatter,” Zeke replied. “Blue blood. The rain’s already spread it out too much; it’s hard to make out—but it’s a trail.”

“Jesus—“ Ben cringed, watching his steps, despite not being able to see the thirium stains as well as Zeke could. “Our friend back there said he thought he saw Connor get shot once, but if he’s bleeding this badly—“ He looked around, but the contrast of night darkness and light from street lamps catching on the falling rain was making it hard to see. “He can’t have gotten himself far if he’s losing this much blood.”

He grabbed the radio at his shoulder, calling in to the other units searching the area, warning them that Connor would likely be in need of immediate technical attention. A series of acknowledgements came back, with Gwen reporting that there were emergency thirium supplies in Ben’s trunk.

Zeke picked up his pace, walking more quickly along the bloody trail. Ben watched him, his nerves spiking.

“Gwen, better double back and get that supply.”

“Copy.”

Zeke abruptly moved between two parked cars, and he ducked out of view. “Found him!”

Ben ran after Zeke, coming around the back end of a car, and suddenly there was Connor, sitting on the wet ground and slumped against the iron fencing of the lot. His head was hanging low and toward his left shoulder, and both of his blue-stained hands were pressed against his right hip. He was soaked from the light rain over the past twenty minutes, and Zeke was kneeling down beside him, hands on his shoulders and trying to rouse him.

Ben grabbed at his radio against. “We found him. We’re at—“ he glanced at their surroundings, “South end, up against the fence, between a…uh…a blue Camaro and a black SUV.”

The radio chattered responses back at him, and he moved closer to Connor.

“Get AES. He’s been shot, and he’s lost a lot of blood. Gwen—“

“On my way. I already see you.”

Ben took a step back, enough to visually confirm Gwen running toward their location with the entire android emergency kit from Ben’s trunk.

“He’s coming around,” Zeke spoke up. “Connor? Hey, hey, wake up. We found you. We gotcha. Stay awake for us, man.”

Ben knelt down on Connor’s other side, just as Connor was blearily blinking his eyes open. His LED was a sluggish yellow, and he struggled to focus on either of them.

“Zeke…Ben?” he mumbled.

“Look at that, coherent and everything,” Ben said in a cheery tone, pulling off his rainproof windbreaker and hurriedly tucking it around the soaked android. “Good job, Connor. You’re doing fine. You did what you were supposed to do: you got away—“

“They…got away…”

“We’ll get ‘em.” Ben made a motion with his hand for Zeke to try and keep him talking.

Zeke nodded and kept a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “We’ll get them. Just hang in there. AES is coming.”

Gwen skidded into view, bag on her shoulder, and Connor blinked at her owlishly.

“Ayiss…” he slurred.

“No, Gwen,” she corrected, setting the bag down and popping it open. “What do you want first, blood or bandages?”

“Bandages,” Ben said, carefully moving his jacket and Connor’s drenched jacket aside for a better look at the damage. “We need to stop this bleeding.”

“I…I identified all f-five men…” Connor garbled out.

“That’s good,” Zeke assured.

“M-Martin F-Fleming—“

Ben shook his head, “Buddy, you can tell us all about it later, but right now, I need you to move your hands a little so I can see what we’re dealing with here. All right?”

Connor looked at him, a mixture of fear, panic, and blood loss shock in his expression. He wordlessly nodded and then winced, forcibly shifting his hands to give Ben access.

“Bullet only g-grazed.”

“Yeah, it only grazed your hip joint,” Ben remarked, moving Connor’s hands and shirt and finally getting a good look at the damage.

The bullet was technically a graze, leaving more of a glancing crater than a hole over Connor’s hip just above his waist line. Ben gingerly felt Connor’s lower back just to make sure there weren’t any surprise wounds or other damage. Finding none, he took the pressure bandage from Gwen and quickly taped it down over the wound. Connor hissed and recoiled, but his right leg didn’t move. Ben tried to be as gentle as he could, while still firmly applying the bandage.

“That’ll keep any more rain or dirt from getting in there until we get you to a facility,” he explained. “I don’t want to know what an infected android wound looks like.”

Connor snorted, tilting his head back against the fence and swallowing reflexively. Gwen was already fishing out a bottle of thirium from the kit, twisting it open and handing it to Zeke, who was closer to be able to help Connor drink it.

“Connor, is your leg cold?” Ben asked, putting his hand on Connor’s right knee.

The limb felt dead, and Connor just nodded, reaching for the thirium bottle.

“H-hurt too much…Sensors overloaded,” he explained haltingly.

Zeke let Connor take the bottle to drink it on his own, but he kept a hand under Connor’s elbow just to help his arm stay steady. Connor shivered, not fighting him off.

Ben looked to Gwen. “AES?”

Gwen had long removed her LED, but Ben had gotten to know all her tells. He could see it in her eyes as she ran a scan on the radio waves, then she nodded.

“Two minutes out,” she confirmed.

An umbrella appeared in her hands, and she rapidly unfurled it and popped it open, stepping around Ben to hold it over Connor. The guy was already soaked, but more rain certainly wasn’t going to help him at this point. Ben scooted a little closer to Connor, putting a hand on Connor’s other forearm lying at his side and giving him a shake.

Connor dazedly blinked to keep his eyes open, finding Ben. Ben offered an encouraging smile and left his hand on Connor’s arm.

“Five on one? That’s a new level of unwise, my boy,” he teased lightly.

Connor huffed, trying to respirate normally while Zeke grabbed up another thirium bottle. “I didn’t intend for this to happen…Things…escalated.”

Gwen snorted, standing above them with the umbrella. “That is an understatement that Lieutenant Anderson is not going to appreciate.”

Connor swallowed again, tilting his head back and looking weakly up at her. “I’m op-open to better ideas on how to ph-phrase this.”

He was starting to shiver more earnestly now, and Ben glanced at Zeke. Zeke was immediately taking off his jacket as well, and the two of them carefully helped Connor sit up enough for Zeke to put the jacket around Connor’s back. They let him lean back against the fence again with a hiss, and Gwen jumped in with her distraction technique.

“How’s this—Instead of saying you got in a fight with five guys…You could say you got into a verbal altercation with one guy…and then four of his buddies just showed up out of nowhere—“

“That’s not what h-happened—“

“And they were all on horseback! And they were aliens!” Gwen expounded. “No way you were ever gonna stand a chance against five alien guys on horseback, all armed with hatchets—“

“How did he get shot with a hatchet?” Zeke argued.

“W-Wait, I thought only four guys were on horses?” Connor frowned, trying to concentrate.

With Connor successfully taking the distraction, Ben took the opportunity to more directly look him over for any more damage without freaking the guy out further. Ben couldn’t see any other gunshot wounds or serious injuries. Just bruises and scrapes. All the same, he gestured for Zeke to keep getting Connor to drink more thirium.

“The first guy’s horse was nearby,” Gwen explained.

“Why am I p-picking fights with aliens on h-horses?” Connor looked unconvinced.

“And are we not addressing the hatchet continuity error?” Zeke pressed with a grin.

“Yeah, Gwen,” Ben played along too. “Get your story straight.”

Gwen scowled at all of them, then framed her hands around her face at Connor. “Connor, look at me, man. The aliens had technology waaay beyond ours here on Earth. They got hatchets that shoot bullets—“

“Now where are we as a species if we can’t invent hatchet-pistols?” Ben shook his head. “That’s disappointing for humanity.”

Connor glanced from Gwen, to Ben, and back to Gwen, grinning weakly at her annoyed face. The glint of orange and blue flashing lights from the AES ambulance were lit behind her, and almost immediately, there were two technicians with a gurney vying for access to their patient.

Zeke and Gwen shimmed out of the way around the noses of the parked cars around them, and Ben moved toward the fence, keeping steadying hands on Connor as the technicians approached.

“Single gunshot wound above his right hip,” Ben started to explain. “I don’t know how much blood he’s lost, but he’s drank about a pint of replacement thirium.”

The first technician whipped out a light to check Connor’s eyes. “Sir, do you remember—“

“There were these a-aliens…with horses…Horse aliens,” Connor garbled. “They shot me with a hatchet…”

The tech looked in alarm to Ben, who grimaced.

“He’s lucid, I swear. We were just trying to keep his mind off—“

“You lied about the horse aliens?!” Connor looked stricken, the blood loss appearing to finally affect his higher cognitive functions. “What else a-are you not t-telling me?”

Gwen leaned over Ben’s shoulder. “My name isn’t really Gwen. It’s Cleopatra. I’m queen of the horse aliens.”

“I KNEW IT.”

Ben glared back at her. “You’re not helping now.”

Gwen winked. “I disagree.”

Connor looked haughtily at Ben. “Don’t piss off the horse alien queen.”

“Okay.” The technician had heard enough. “I’m putting him in stasis for transport.”

All jokes aside, they managed to get Connor off the wet ground and onto the gurney, where his overloaded sensors decided it was time to reboot and wake up. The resulting pain had Connor’s jaw locking and a tense whine clawing up out of him.

“Easy, kiddo.” Ben gave his arm a squeeze as they lifted the gurney and lowered the wheels for easier transport to the ambulance. “We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

Connor nodded through gritted teeth, and the technician put his hand on the spot behind Connor’s ear to initiate an external emergency stasis. Connor soon went limp, his eyes shutting, and he was carted into the ambulance.

“Zeke, go with them,” Ben ordered.

“On it.” Zeke followed after the technician.

Ben hurried off toward his car to use the radio there with the better reception to call in to Fowler and dispatch. Gwen followed him.

“You are going to regret that whole alien thing,” Ben remarked, grabbing up the radio. “Connor has a memory like a steel trap. He won’t let you live that down.”

Gwen folded her arms and cocked her head. “Please, I’ve got plenty of dirt on that man. He knows better than to mess with me.”

Ben smirked, leveling a look at her. “He’s your superior officer.”

“He also has a shameful addiction to lemon scents and flavors, and SOMEBODY,” she pointed both fingers at herself, “may have caught him ‘sampling’ the cleaning materials on multiple occasions and may have video evidence to prove it. There’s also the cactus incident that only he and I know about, but he knows that I know, and I know that he knows that I know, so he won’t test me.”

“He could report you for insubordination for that.”

“Not if he doesn’t want the whole squad to know about the Day of Three Returns.”

Ben looked quizzically at her, and Gwen shrugged.

“Julia’s activation day last year, he bought her a gift, then panicked because he realized nobody else at work brought gifts, so he returned it. Then he found out we were giving her gifts after work, so he went out and bought it again. Then the get-together got cancelled, and he panicked and returned it a second time. When we rescheduled for later that night, he went and bought it back a third time, only to have to return it a third time for reasons I haven’t figured out yet. He ended up giving her that lame gift card. It looked super last minute and not thought out at all. Very embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as buying and returning a gift three times in the same day.” Gwen cackled evilly. “I’m keeping that little nugget right here,” she said, mimicking putting said ‘nugget’ in her pants pocket. “And you will too, unless you want the squad to know the real reason YOU were late to that same party.”

Ben raised his eyebrows at her. She raised her eyebrows back at him. He chuckled.

“Long live Cleopatra.”

Gwen spread her arms and bowed, and Ben chuckled, finally opening a line to dispatch to let them know the situation.


	27. Memory Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a virus wipes out his memories, Connor is alone on the roof of the DPD. Fortunately, he's not alone for long, and his friend guides him back from the fog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt used for this is listed at the bottom, since it contains spoilers for the chapter itself XD

Connor didn’t know how he got here. He wasn’t…entirely sure where ‘here’ was. It was well within the capabilities of his system to scan his environment and identify his location, but everything felt so muddled. He couldn’t focus on anything besides the anti-virus software blowing up his HUD with alert after alert after alert.

His system had isolated the virus, which had specifically targeted his memory files, and it was in the process of scrubbing it out. But it wasn’t fast enough, and now…

_Memory: 0% used, 100% available._

“No,” he hissed, screwing his eyes shut to try and block out his surroundings. “No, nononono…”

It couldn’t all be gone. He could…He could restore…Right? He was…He was an RK800. His model had been designed to withstand…to…to withstand…

Even though he knew what the outcome would be, he initiated a scan of his memory files all the way back to his activation date.

_RK800. Serial number 313-248-317-51. Designation: Connor._

_Activated August 2038._

_Legal name changed to Connor Steven Anderson in 2040._

_Current location: roof of Detroit Police Department 7 th precinct station._

_Current date: November 2, 2072._

A personnel listing for the 7th precinct below the roof under his feet started to come up, but he closed it before he got past the name of the captain: Angela Ross.

The name didn’t ring any bells anyway, but he was…he was employed here. He worked here at the DPD. If he couldn’t even remember his captain’s name…any of his co-workers, friends, family…

The door to the stairwell that led into the building creaked open, and he kept his back turned toward it, opening his eyes to the blurry vision of the Detroit skyline. It was a balmy dusk evening, and the street lights were starting to kick on as the sky darkened with the fading sunset. He wrapped his hands around the ledge of the three foot wall that ran around the edge of the roof, utterly lost and uncaring who was behind him. He wouldn’t know them anyway.

“Hey.” Her voice didn’t even sound familiar, but her tone was soft…the kind you used around people with which you were very familiar…or so his analytical software told him.

The woman who sidled up beside him was taller than average, with a willowy build and dark hair tied back in a simple ponytail. She looked to be in her late thirties or early forties. She was wearing a navy DPD t-shirt and tactical pants and boots, and there were safety goggles hanging around her neck. She had a beige backpack hanging off her shoulder.

He didn’t bother running his recognition software against his public records database. He still wouldn’t know who she was. Not in the way that mattered.

“They told me what happened downstairs. I came as soon as they called me,” she said, setting her bag down and looping her thumbs through the belt loops of her pants. “How bad is it?”

“It’s all gone,” he mumbled. “One hundred percent memory file erasure. There’s nothing left but…factory settings and…a public records database.”

“Well, that’s not nothing,” she chirped, visibly trying to be cheerful.

“Just leave me alone.”

“You know I can’t do that, partner,” she pressed, stepping around him and sitting her backside against the wall.

She folded her arms and leaned purposefully into his field of vision. Her eyes were full of concern, but she had a forced lopsided smile that said she was trying to cheer him up. When that failed, she stood off the wall and knelt down, opening her bag.

“Think back, Connor. You’re an RK800. You were designed to withstand viruses like this.”

“But I’m not withstanding it,” he bit out. “My memory files were all erased.”

“Yes, BUT you were designed to be very smart,” she countered, pulling three things from her bag.

The first was a white box with a Sardonyx label on it, closed with a metal latch in the front. The second was also a box, wooden cedar and showing the wear and tear of several years. The third was a wadded up DPD windbreaker, with “C. Anderson” stamped in white on the right breast.

His system automatically scanned his environment again. It was a humid 70 degrees Fahrenheit, hardly warranting a jacket. As if sensing his thoughts, she looked up at him, holding the jacket wadded up in one hand.

“You always get chilly when you brood up here.”

“The air temperature is hardly what my system would classify as ‘chilly.’ And I am not brooding,” he muttered, folding his arms and looking away from her.

She sighed, setting the jacket down and picking up the Sardonyx box.

“I don’t know who you are,” he muttered, tightening his arms around himself. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t mask the hurt on her face at that, but she recovered quickly from it.

“I know, but it’s not your fault. We can fix it. See?” She popped open the box. “You know your system automatically backs up everything during your daily rest mode and uploads that backup in an encrypted file to an external server that only four other people in the universe have access to, one of which is me. So…tada.”

She clicked open the box, revealing a small, silver, rectangular hard drive. She didn’t immediately take the drive out, looking at him carefully.

“This is your backup from yesterday, so at most you’ve lost a day of irretrievable data between then and now. But everything before this morning is right here.”

Connor balked, staring at the little drive that contained his entire existence, as if it could be so compactly contained in such a tangible way. He looked back to her.

“You’re still you, even without this,” she said, gesturing with the box, as if reading his thoughts. “These memories just help explain…all of this,” she waved her hand vaguely at his person with a smirk.

“It also gives context for why you’re helping me,” he remarked flatly.

Her smirk faltered, and she lowered the box.

“Because I love you and your dumb robot face,” she said quietly.

Whatever his reaction to that was supposed to be, he didn’t live up to it, and she cleared her throat to cover up her disappointment.

“Anyway, download and implementation of the backup data will take about fifteen minutes, and…I’m told it’s going to be uncomfortable and might give you a headache for the rest of the day, but…small price to pay for a lifetime of memories, I’d say, yeah?” she prompted.

Connor processed that, then slowly reached out and took the drive from the box. It somehow felt even smaller and more fragile between his fingers now than it had looked in the box, and he held it delicately. Anxiety was building up quickly in his chest again, and he pulled back the skin on his palm, letting the drive rest there as he initiated the download.

“Whoa, hey—“ she started. “Maybe we go inside and let you sit down or something for this? Better yet, let me take you home.”

Connor shook his head, sensing the start of the massive memory file upload hitting his database. He flinched at the intensity as it started, but he stayed firm.

“No. I don’t want to be like this any longer than I have to.”

She eyed him, then nodded compliantly. “Okay…then can we at least—“

She made a show of sitting down on the roof, leaning against the wall where it could block the wind. Connor paused, then acquiesced, sinking down to sit next to her, the drive still perched on his open hand.

The fog in his memory files wasn’t quite clearing yet, but she had said fifteen minutes.

“…Can you stay?” he asked lowly. “Even though I don’t remember you yet…I’d rather not be alone.”

She scooted closer. “You got it, buster.”

He sighed with an inward relief, trying not to focus too hard on the overwhelming stream of information hitting his processors all at once. She was right; this was going to be unpleasant. The pressure in his cranium was already building. He pressed the heel of his other hand briefly to his forehead against that pressure, then looked away, searching for a distraction to pass the time.

“What about that?” he asked, nodding toward the remaining cedar box.

She smiled, picking up the box and setting it in her lap. “This…is a gift that you gave me a long time ago. It was after, uh, my first homicide case. It was rough—I mean, they’re never not-rough, but that was my first one as a beat cop and it was…pretty bad, and I almost quit the force, thinking I wasn’t cut out for this. You were there for me, when everybody else was trying to sway me one way or another. You were just there, and…I know this,” she affectionately touched the box, “was something that always helped you calm down, so I figured you thought it would help me too and…it did…So…”

Her voice cracked, and she coughed, cackled, and then shook her head.

“Blaugh, ugh, emotions, sorry.” She blew a raspberry and looked at him again. “At any rate, I just…figured it might help now…I dunno.”

Connor looked at her, to the box, and back to her. “That’s very considerate of you.”

She smiled and nudged her shoulder against his, then opened the box.

Immediately, a soft, metallic plinky-plunky tune drifted out of the opening. Connor’s database recognized the tune, but only in the strictest sense. Any relevance of it to his life or context was not immediately forthcoming. The absence of true recognition made the fog in his head feel denser, and he frowned, feeling melancholy.

She scooted closer again, smiling in a way that implied that she understood. He looked at her painfully, and she gently took his hand. He let her, and she started to hum with the music.

_Download 12 percent complete. 86 percent remaining._

_Estimated time: 13 minutes._

Connor took a slow breath to cool his internal systems, which had started to heat as they worked to process the download.

Beside him, her humming slowly started to take the form of words.

“…You make me happy…when skies are grey…”

The cranial pressure behind his eyes increased as the download reached 15 percent, and he bowed his head slightly with a grimace. Her hand reached up and lightly brushed through his hair comfortingly.

“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you…”

_Download 20 percent complete._

Names and faces were starting to come back, thought the memories still felt staticked.

“Please don’t take my sunshine away…”

She continued to quietly murmur the song along with the music box as the download continued.

When it reached 30 percent, he shivered, admitting under his breath, “I hate the cold.”

And now that he could remember why, it was even worse to endure.

“I know you do,” she replied, offering him his own jacket again.

He sheepishly took it, awkwardly pulling it on and then leaning against the wall again beside her.

The music box eventually began to slow, the tune starting to draw itself out as it wound down. She finally closed the box and reached behind it, starting to twist the dial to wind it back up for another round.

Connor watched her silently for a moment, and then tilted his head, looking at her properly.

“Lieutenant Stevens,” he said, testing the waters.

She straightened up, looking at him with a wide smile as her eyes lit up. A split second later, she raised both eyebrows and her expression shifted to teasing at his formality. He paused, then began to relax further as the download began to take hold properly in his memory bank.

“Bonny,” he corrected himself. “Lieutenant Bonny J. Stevens…I know you.”

Her eyes turned wet as her smile widened, and she put her arms around him in a sideways hug.

“Yes you do!” she cheered.

He desperately hugged her in return, the sight of her and the sound of her and even the smell of her suddenly so familiar again. He breathed a heavy sigh as more of the fog began to clear.

“I missed you…and your dumb human face,” he mumbled into her shoulder.

She cackled and popped up from her seat into a kneel, extending her hand toward him.

“C’mon, if you’re up for it, the fam’s downstairs waiting to drown you in more hugs. Ross called them as soon as she realized what was happening.”

Connor paused, then took her hand, letting her pull him up to his feet. More faces and experiences were starting to bombard his main processor now, but it was giving him a headache that he wouldn’t trade for the world. She started putting everything back in her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder.

“They’re here?” he asked.

“Yeah, and thank God, Hank wasn’t driving at his age. Though the way Coda drives when he’s all panicky and…y’know how he gets…I’m shocked either of them got here alive,” Bonny rambled, locking elbows with him and walking with him to the door. “The rest of the fam is here too, y’know, in case you need us to all serenade you—“ she snickered, nodding toward the music box in her backpack.

“No,” Connor said hastily. “I’ve had more than enough of your singing tonight.”

“Oh!” she crooned in mock offense, shoving him slightly. “Rude!”

Feeling more like himself again, he saluted with a wink.

She gave a toothy smile, rolled her eyes, and dragged him toward the door. “God, you’re a dork. C’mon, little brother—“

“I’ve asked you not to call me that—“

“For decades now, and when will you learn?!”

“I’ll learn that when you learn how to carry a tune!”

“BOY, I OUGHTA…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Delphi: “Connor, due to some error in his program, malfunctions and slowly gets his memories erased. […] the oldest, farthest memory is the song You Are My Sunshine, which is conveniently in a music box that Connor once gave to Bonny as a present, and Bonny visits Connor to comfort him […].”
> 
> This prompt had a few more moving parts to it than I’m used to, so I truncated it a bit to make it easier on myself XD I think I still managed to get the essence of it though!


	28. Into the Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor has faced many challenges in his life, and he has always faced them with confidence in his abilities. Now he's full of doubt and anxiety, in this unassuming rural home full of people that he desperately wants to make a good first impression on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a jaunt with an idea I've been thinking about for a while.

Connor knew that he had subroutines on how to handle scenarios like this. “Divide and conquer” wasn’t exactly a new strategy, but it had obviously worked well enough throughout history to bear repeating. It had certainly been effective so far in the hours since they had arrived. Connor had lost track of Hank entirely, left to fend for himself in this unfamiliar group of people, full of eyes that stared just a little too long, set in faces that were either awkwardly polite or blatantly wary of him.

No. Nope. No. He had been wrong; he had no subroutines for this. He had been designed to blend in, to set the humans around him at ease, to make good first impressions, to be the perfect work partner: all in the service of solving cases and accomplishing his assigned missions.

Not…this.

Not…the Anderson family reunion.

The first socially acceptable chance that he got, Connor had escaped the large living room full of well meaning but uncomfortably curious people, quietly slipping upstairs to the guest room for a moment…Just…just a moment to collect himself.

In the admittedly few years that he had gotten to know Hank, he had only heard him speak of his family once, and even then, it had been limited to only his parents: his mother Holly and his step father Thomas Anderson. And he had only spoken to say that he had shut them out not long after losing his son and getting divorced. Things had been done and said, and Hank carried a lot of guilt for that. Connor had gotten the impression that it was a subject better left alone.

But over the past year, Hank confessed that he had opened the line of communication with them again, and apparently things had been progressing positively enough that he had wanted to physically reunite with them. Holly and Thomas had invited Hank, and specifically included Connor as well, to come out for the weekend to visit. Hank had made it clear that Connor was under no obligation to attend, that it was going to be a little weird after everything that had happened in their family, that it was going to be his parents and likely a few local cousins showing up, and that if that sounded like too much, then there would be no hard feelings if Connor wanted to opt out of the whole thing.

Connor had not wanted his friend to endure this “weirdness” alone however, so he had eagerly accepted the invitation. He was, after all, legally an Anderson now as well.

He had…a few regrets.

Holly was a kind, elderly woman who was clearly out of her element but trying her best to be welcoming toward him. They lived in a rural part of Michigan, far outside of Detroit, and it was clear that androids were not very common in these small neighborhoods and even less accepted as living beings. Their two level, yellow homestead had a wrap-around porch and the ‘guest rooms’ were clearly spare rooms for visiting grandchildren who lived out of town. Connor wasn’t going to complain though. Holly was a lovely host, she called him ‘dear,’ and she had no qualms about touching his arm or shoulder when getting his attention…which only stood out because the cousins visibly avoided being near him.

Thomas was an older man of very few words but undeniable presence. Despite not participating in most of the living room conversation, everyone was very aware of the head of the family, sitting in his recliner with a ginger ale and only occasionally chiming in with an ‘uh uh’ or ‘right.’

Fortunately…Well, fortunately for Connor, unfortunately for Hank, the family had been primarily occupied with smothering Hank in years’ worth of questions, stories of their own, family pictures, and generally ‘catching up’ business. After the compulsory introductions, Connor found himself mostly ignored or warily stared at. It was preferable to whatever Hank was having to endure, but it was still fairly isolating.

He didn’t know anyone here. Holly was the only one besides Hank that he felt honestly comfortable around, but he didn’t want to impose on this overdue time with her estranged son. Then again…she HAD invited Connor as well.

His subroutines were unclear on how to handle this.

So he chose to retreat.

The upstairs guest room where he had been assigned was quaint. It was decorated in neutral colors, but he had found a few little renegade green army soldiers and the caboose of a miniature train set that gave away which grandchild usually stayed here. Connor had carefully put the random toys in the closet, trying to be as respectful of the home as possible, which meant occupying the smallest amount of space possible. He kept his travel bag packed and set on the floor by the foot of the bed, not wanting to disturb anyone else’s belongings in the room.

Honestly, it was a touching gesture that they had even offered him a room. If more Andersons were expected to visit and needed the room, Connor would completely understand if he needed to move out. He could take the couch or…or even just stand somewhere near a wall out of the way. He didn’t NEED to lie down for his rest cycle like humans did…

He was…He was stalling. He was stalling and hiding up here in this guest room now. This was rude. He was being rude. He was stalling and hiding and being rude. Oh no, he was blowing this, wasn’t he? He shouldn’t have come. Hank was his family, but this was Hank’s family. He was intruding. The invitation was probably meant only as a courtesy gesture anyway. Why would they ever want an android here?…Guilt poured across his circuitry, and he wrung his hands once before shaking them loose.

He would just…He would just need to find a polite way to let them off the hook. Then he could go back to Detroit and let Hank enjoy this weekend getting to mend the bridges with his family without worrying about Connor. Yes…That…That was the play here…

Settling on that conclusion, Connor took a slow breath, and the air puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled, turning around to leave the room and rejoin the party downstairs.

Thomas Anderson was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded across his chest and watching Connor with a closed off expression.

Connor startled slightly, not having heard the man approach despite the creaky staircase.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t realize you were—“ Connor stuttered, mechanically folding his arms to mimic the man, only to abruptly lower them to try and appear more casual. “I only came up here to take a break…Not that you all haven’t been…I mean, your family has been nothing but kind…I only meant…I’m sorry.”

Connor’s jaw wisely locked shut, preventing him from babbling further.

Thomas eyed him for a mute moment, then sighed heavily. “You break anything?”

“No, sir.”

“Then don’t apologize unless you got something to apologize for,” he grunted, sizing Connor up. “We can be a rowdy bunch down there. Can’t blame an outsider for needing a break from it.”

Outsider.

Connor put together an acquiescing smile. “Thank you. You have a lovely home—“

“Bah.” Thomas lifted a hand with a frown. “I don’t do that small talk bullshit.”

“O-Oh…I’m sorry.” Connor cringed as the apology slipped out. “So…can I help you with someth—“

Thomas’s face remained flat. “Save all your help for Hank. He’s the one that needs it.”

Connor didn’t speak to that.

Thomas looked down at his feet briefly, then squinted, looking around the rest of the room. “Guy’s been through Hell the last several years. Lost his son, ruined his marriage, nearly threw away his career, and kept every bar and liquor store in Detroit in business.”

“That isn’t fair,” Connor started, then stopped himself, refraining from challenging the head of the family in his own home.

Thomas stood off the door frame, eyebrows raising as he glared at Connor.

“What’s not fair is my wife worrying herself half to death for years over our son, who said unrepeatable things to us before cutting us out of his life, when all we wanted was to help him.”

Connor’s hands stayed carefully at his sides, but his fingers curled inwards into fists.

Thomas wasn’t done. “Pushed away all of his family and friends, did so much damage that the only friend he’s got left was built in a factory, huh?”

“I…assure you, sir, that despite the TRAGEDY that Hank has endured…he has endured it and come through to the other side stronger—“

“Bah,” Thomas waved him off. “Weak excuses for a weak man. If you ask me, even being all plastic and metal like you are, you’re probably more of a man than he will ever—“

Connor was moving before his higher functions could tell him that was a bad idea. Something stronger than rational thought dumped across his processors, and in two quick strides, he was across the room, backing Thomas Anderson against the wall, and pressing in toward his face.

“I am only the man that I am because of Hank Anderson. He has saved my life in every way that a life can be saved, and I refuse to stand here and listen to you slander him and belittle what he has overcome,” he seethed.

Thomas raised his hands in mock surrender, opening his mouth to say more. Connor didn’t give him the chance.

“If you were half the man that he is, you would have been there for your son in his darkest days, but you weren’t. He had to fight off that darkness alone. How dare you call into question his strength? If this,” he gestured toward the living room downstairs, “is some twisted game that you’re playing—and if it in any way harms Hank, then trust that I will make sure that that harm comes back to you tenfold.”

“Are you threatening me, boy?”

“Absolutely,” Connor pressed, staring at the man with that hard promise.

Thomas looked him in one eye, then the other, and then…he relaxed? And…laughed?

Connor blinked, straightening from his forward lean and out of the man’s personal space, confused.

It wasn’t a mocking laugh but more of a warm chuckle, and Thomas lowered his arms, putting his hands on his hips and surveying Connor again. His closed off expression softened considerably, and the sheepish smile spreading across his mouth was read as genuine by Connor’s software.

“Well, now I know where you stand,” Thomas said warmly.

“…Wh…What?” Connor balked.

Thomas chuckled again, reaching up a hand and clapping it over Connor’s shoulder with a friendly wiggle. “I read up on your bells and whistles, Mr. RK800. I know you’re supposed to be the perfect partner and be all polite around humans to get them to trust you…but you just full on threatened me, son.”

“I’m…sorry?” Connor remained utterly confused. “You were…What?”

“This was a test, kid,” Thomas said, gesturing between them. “I was testing you, and congratulations, you passed.”

When Connor continued to stare blankly, Thomas nodded and explained.

“You’re right when you say that my son has gone through the worst days of anybody’s life these past several years, but he made it very clear, very frequently, that he did not want us involved. Didn’t want our help, our sympathy, anything. He was…grieving, but so were we,” Thomas stated. “I have regrets with the way it all went down, but…thankfully you’ve been there to pick up the slack.”

Connor’s confusion only deepened at that. “You don’t…carry disdain for your son or…me?”

“Of course not,” Thomas assured, his hand on Connor’s shoulder giving a light squeeze. “I just wanted to be sure that you were the real deal. Around these parts, we hear stories about androids pretending to care about people just to get in the good graces of human families that they can exploit and take advantage of. I wanted to make sure you weren’t one of them.”

“By…berating your son in front of me?” It slowly dawned on Connor. “To see my reaction.”

He frowned and looked at the elderly man. He didn’t exactly look frail, but…

“I could have done you serious harm,” he warned.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” Thomas said lightly. His smile sombered. “Hank…really seems to be doing so much better. Or is all that a mask?”

He nodded toward the stairs as a burst of raucous laughter broke in the living room, Hank’s voice identifiable among them.

Connor found himself starting to relax a little at the sound. “I believe he is happier now and is in a much healthier emotional state than when I first met him.”

Weight seemed to lift from Thomas’s shoulders at that, and he took a slow breath.

“Good. I…I’m glad to hear that.”

“Though there are still bad days,” Connor confessed.

“There always will be, but even just talking to him on the phone lately, he sounds more and more like his old self all the time and…Well, Hell, anybody who can do that for him is welcome in my house,” Thomas said, then extended a hand toward Connor.

Connor stared at the outstretched hand, then slowly took it, shaking the man’s hand.

“I don’t understand. You referred to me as an outsider.”

“Well, from one former outsider to another,” Thomas said with a grin, “welcome to the family.”

“I…”

“You’re an Anderson, aren’t you?” Thomas asked.

“Yes,” Connor agreed cautiously.

Thomas nodded. “Well, there we go then. C’mon back downstairs when you feel like it, and don’t mind any of those cousins. If they give you any attitude, you let me know, and I’ll take care of them.”

Connor straightened slightly. “I’m capable of taking care of myself, sir.”

“Yeah, but in my house, you don’t have to,” Thomas remarked, then pointed at him. “Besides, I looked you up, remember? You were activated in 2038? That only makes you four years old, which makes you the baby of the family—“

“I’m not a baby.”

“You’re the baby,” Thomas shrugged, as if it was out of his hands. “Either way, I’ll see you downstairs.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thomas looked at him as he headed back toward the hall. “And drop the ‘sir’ crap.”

“Sorry…Mr. Anderson.”

“No.”

“…Thomas?”

“That’ll work,” Thomas said with a nod.

Connor relaxed more, taking a chance. “It’s…nice to meet you, Thomas.”

“Nice to meet you too, Connor,” Thomas winked. “I look forward to getting to know you better.”

“Maybe without…any more tests?”

“…We’ll see.”


	29. Extreme Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank and Connor deal with the personal aftermath of a double tornado event in Detroit.

Detroit spent the morning under an overcast sky and an endless downpour of rain that didn’t let up until midafternoon. The downpour only let up because the wind picked up and caused the rain to come in sideways instead. The sky had turned nearly black by 3pm, and that’s when it hit. The double tornado event only lasted for twenty minutes, but it had been twenty minutes of Hell.

Hank had seen his share of nasty weather, and while this wasn’t the worst he’d seen, it was still devastating. Power was out across chunks of the city. Debris had blocked entire stretches of the streets. Some buildings had been damaged, some had been completely decimated, and some had been left untouched. After spending nearly 18 hours working damage control with everybody else, Fowler had ordered him to go home…to find out if he still had one himself. Despite Connor’s assurances that he could keep working for days more without needing to recharge, Fowler had sent him home too, and Hank…really wished in retrospect that Hank had had some time to gauge the situation at the house before Connor saw the state of it.

The house was still standing. It looked like roughly half of the windows had been blown out, and a tree from the neighbor’s yard had been ripped out at the roots and harpooned through the front of the house, filling the living room with broken glass, splintered wood, and leafy branches. All the furniture was ruined from the hours of rain, along with most of Hank’s old records and hardbound books, ripped off the shelves and splattered across the muddy wet floor.

Hank carefully picked his way through, finding his bedroom, garage, and bathroom intact, just windswept and wet from the broken windows. He and Connor had already checked on the neighbors. The Paulsons next door were unscathed but deeply shaken. Barry and his wife Wendy hadn’t been home when the storm hit, but their six year old daughter Sofie and the teenaged babysitter Greta had been. Hank had spotted Greta first, thanks to her bright blue hair and very wide eyes where she was with paramedics, and made sure she was all right before heading into his own house.

The girl had a big bandage on her forearm but was otherwise unhurt. The sirens had gone off early enough for her to get Sofie into the basement, and then the foolish young woman had defied the storm to go next door and grab Sumo, who had been barking and panicking alone in Hank’s living room so loudly that she had felt compelled to go over to rescue him. The wind had smacked the door into her arm for her trouble, cutting her forearm badly but not breaking the bone.

Foolish, brave, wonderful girl.

Hank moved from the house into the garage, where the wind vacuum had knocked some stuff around, but he didn’t see any damage. The rolling door of the garage screeched and groaned, but it still rolled up as he pushed it and stepped out onto the driveway. Fortunately, the night darkness was blocking most of the carnage up and down the street, but the headlights of Ben’s car cast an unavoidable spotlight on Connor.

Connor was sitting sideways in the passenger seat of the Oldsmobile, parked on the curb since the driveway was blocked by debris. His feet were planted on the ground, and his hands were firmly buried in the fur of Sumo’s neck, where the dog was sitting between the android’s knees. Ben had made a makeshift leash out of an extension cord found in the yard, and Connor was clutching onto the end of it, despite Sumo clearly not interested in going anywhere.

The big mutt was calm now, if only agitated because he could sense Connor’s distress. Sumo’s tongue hung out of his mouth in a canine smile as he let Connor mindlessly pet him over and over again. Connor’s eyes were blank and staring in a detached manner at the ruined half of the Anderson house, visibly trying to process it. Ben was standing nearby, rubbing his jaw and looking almost as overwhelmed and tired as Hank felt in his bones. Polly and Wilson had just arrived in Wilson’s truck.

With everybody at the station affected by either power outages, home damage, or just full on exhaustion, several of the squad was couch surfing tonight, and by the state of the house, Hank and Connor and Sumo were going to be among them. Ben and the Wilsons still had power, and Ben had offered his couch at his apartment. Wilson had offered to take Sumo, since he had a big fenced in yard. Connor had mumbled something earlier about Person offering to let Connor stay at her place. It wasn’t ideal, being separated after something like this, but Hank was grateful for their friends for being as accommodating as possible during all this. Ben had even made some mighty big talk about making his homemade pancakes to cheer up Hank.

Yet, as Hank came a little closer, he wasn’t sure separating was a good idea. Connor looked deeply shaken by the destruction of the house.

“It’s just stuff, Connor,” Hank said, trying to sound reassuring as he approached the Oldsmobile. “Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

Connor looked from the house to Hank, not appearing to be very reassured.

“Got all the important stuff here,” Hank added, patting Sumo on the head and then resting his hand on Connor’s shoulder.

He could feel his friend trembling slightly, and he frowned.

“Hey…”

“It’s…the only home I’ve ever had,” Connor mumbled. “Ever known.”

Hank grimaced, looking past him to Ben, who stared back at him. Ben made a helpless expression and rubbed the back of his neck, squinting and looking over to Polly and Wilson nearby.

“Hey,” Hank started in a more comforting tone, leaning against the car. “We’ll fix it up just like new. Even if the damage is so bad that we have to knock the whole thing down and rebuild it—“

Connor’s head whipped around to look up at him; his wide eyes informing Hank that that possibility hadn’t even crossed the guy’s mind.

“I don’t want to knock it down!” Connor stammered. “I don’t—I don’t want to have to ‘fix’ it. I just want it to be…the way it was. I don’t want it to look like this…”

He glanced to the wreckage that was the front half of the house, flinched, and screwed his eyes shut, turning his face away. He curled forward around Sumo, losing his face in the scruff of the dog’s shoulder. Hank took a deep breath, trying to find some strength from Ben, but the other man had walked away, closer to talk to Polly and Wilson.

Hank moved his hand from Connor’s shoulder to the top of his head.

“I know, kid. I’m sorry…I hate this too. Makes you feel…” He blinked a few times, trying to find the right words. “Makes you feel like you’ve lost your tether. Like the rug’s been ripped out from under you, and…nothing feels safe anymore.”

Connor lifted his head, heaving a sigh and giving Hank a composed, if forlorn, look.

Hank mustered a pursed-lipped smile for him. “Yeah…this was home—is home, but home is more than walls and a roof. To me, home is people.”

Connor nodded dully to that, expression remaining pinched. “It still hurts.”

“…I know,” Hank sighed. “Same here. But…there’s nothing we can do about all this tonight. Everybody walked away from this, and that’s what matters. Everything else will be okay. So…let’s try to get some sleep tonight, and we’ll touch base tomorrow to—“

He didn’t miss the tension that locked up Connor’s frame, and he let the sentence trail off. At the same time, Connor avoided his concerned gaze, focusing on his hands, messing with Sumo’s collar. He fidgeted, and Hank could read the anxiety and self consciousness radiating off the guy.

Before he could think of what else to say to comfort his friend, there was Polly.

“Hey,” she greeted softly, giving Hank and Connor both a worried look. “How, uh, how are you guys holding up?”

Connor grunted something, and Hank shrugged.

“We’re alive. That’s all I got right now,” he said lightly.

Polly managed a smile, then her eyes lingered on Hank long enough to hold his attention. She glanced pointedly at Connor, then winked at Hank and went on.

“Well, hey, I was thinking—I mean, there’s…plenty of room at the Wilson house if all three of you want to crash there. Y’know…so you can stay together…I know if I—if this was me, that I wouldn’t want to be away from—I’d want to be with my family. So…I mean, I’m offering—We’re offering—“ she nodded toward Wilson, talking to Ben. “If you’d rather…”

Hank felt a bubble of warmth in his chest toward the android as she babbled, and he gave her an appreciative look. Connor was less subtle. He stood up, displacing Sumo slightly, who stood on all fours and wagged his tail. Then Connor was giving Polly a bear hug.

“Thank you,” he stammered at her, his back turned toward Hank.

Polly looked over his shoulder to Hank, who nodded gratefully to her. She smiled and rubbed her hands up and down Connor’s back comfortingly.

“Of course, man, of course,” she assured. “Mi casa su casa.”

Sumo boofed lightly , nudging at their legs. Hank gave them a slight berth, stepping around them and approaching Wilson and Ben. He looked first to Wilson.

“Thank you,” he pressed, offering his hand.

Wilson gave a somber nod, shaking his hand. “Whatever you need.”

“Well fine,” Ben said in mock offense, folding his arms with a dramatic pout. “I’ll just keep my pancakes to myself then.”

Hank grabbed onto the lighter tone with a gruff laugh. “If you’re so desperate to share your pancakes—“

“World famous pancakes!” Ben moaned.

“World famous pancakes,” Hank corrected himself, “then take your happy ass back to the station and whip up a breakfast for everybody there. They’re gonna need the fuel to get through another day of this.”

“Now that’s now fair…Tina’s a stress eater. There isn’t enough pancake batter in the city limits—“ Ben rambled.

Wilson laughed at him, and Hank shook his head, putting his hands on his hips and looking back to Connor. He had mercifully released Polly, who was eagerly explaining to him all the comforts that the Wilson home could provide. Honestly, at this hour, all that Hank could ask for was a hot shower and somewhere to rest his weary bones.

He braced himself to go back into the house to salvage what he could for now, but he hadn’t been lying to Connor earlier. It was all just stuff, some that could be replaced, some that couldn’t. And yeah, it was a loss, and it was going to hurt for a while. But…

He watched Connor take hold of Sumo’s leash again, looking like he was finding his way back to solid ground with Polly sticking close beside him.

…It could have been so much worse, so all that Hank could feel right now was grateful that it hadn’t been.

Everything will be all right.


	30. Left for Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor and Hank arrive at the crime scene of an android chop shop, and the officers keep looking at Connor strangely. It doesn't take long for him to learn why, but it will take a lot longer to process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This penultimate chapter is a follow up to last year’s “Whumptober at the DPD” chapter 9: Shackled. It was the heaviest chapter of that fic, and so this chapter is, I believe, the heaviest chapter of this one. 
> 
> Prompt from arisprite: “Connor POV follow up [to “Shackled"].”

Squad cars and AES ambulances had already swamped the scene by the time Connor and Hank arrived, parking at the edge of the property. It was an old house with an overgrown yard, reduced to mud in stretches where the police had been moving as they assessed the scene.

Gavin had called it in as a potential site of an android parts black market, though in the span of his radio conversation with dispatch, he had shifted to calling it an “android chop shop.” The DPD had been closing in on the top dealers of illegal android parts for months, and now it sounded like they had busted the shop of one of the main suppliers. Three orange and blue AES ambulances had their lights on, but nobody around them was in a hurry…which meant there were no survivors found here.

Connor grimaced, trailing after Hank as the lieutenant cut a path through the chaos, and Connor looked around, scanning the familiar faces of the DPD and the AES uniforms, as well as identifying any onlookers who had stopped outside the police tape to watch the commotion. It took a moment for him to notice, but he soon realized that everyone was watching him. His fellow officers and the emergency technicians on site were all busy processing the scene, but their eyes were lingering on him in a strange way as he and Hank approached.

Hank’s stride was slowing as he picked up on it too, glancing back at Connor with a frown.

Connor was unsettled. “What is happening—“

“Hey.” Gavin materialized through the front door of the house, making a beeline toward Connor and Hank.

Unlike the staring and shuffling of the others, Gavin was moving purposefully toward them, and he held out a hand as if to stop them.

“What’s going on?” Hank demanded.

Gavin glanced at Connor, with that same strange linger, before focusing instead on Hank.

“The guy isn’t here. Looks like he’s long gone, and he left a blood bath behind for us to sort through,” he started, putting his hands on his hips and standing squarely between Hank and Connor and the property behind him. “We, uh…We found one android still alive in there, but he, uh, we were too late getting here…There was no saving him.”

“Shit,” Hank hissed, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

Another strange glance from Gavin, and Connor narrowed his eyes at him.

“Is there something more, Detective Reed?”

Gavin set his jaw, looking at him and then to Hank, who just raised his eyebrows.

“Either spit it out or move aside. This lunatic isn’t going to catch himself,” Hank said. “The sooner we can process the scene, the sooner we can start tracking him down.”

“We’ve…got it under control here,” Gavin stated vaguely.

“Reed, I swear the God—“ Hank seethed.

Gavin glared at him, then sighed heavily, looking behind him and then back to Hank and Connor, lingering on Connor.

“There was an RK800 in there.”

Androids didn’t get ‘chills’ in the way that humans did, but something inside Connor crackled to static at those words all the same.

_Was._

“He didn’t make it.”

It took a moment for those simple words to register. An RK800 had been here…in this hellhole, and he had not walked out of it.

“Didn’t—He was alive when you got here?” Hank asked.

Gavin paused. “He was missing some critical biocomponents and was already shutting down. There wasn’t enough time to do anything.”

“Where is he?” Connor blurted, straightening up and looking past Gavin toward the house.

Gavin raised his hands higher. “Person and Chris found him. They stayed with him until it was over. You don’t—“

Connor started to push past him.

“You don’t want to see that—“ Gavin called after him.

Hank followed after Connor, gently taking his elbow. “Slow down, hey, Connor—“

“He was…There was an RK800—alive…” Connor stammered, wrestling his elbow from Hank but not continuing forward.

Instead, he turned on his heel and looked at his friend pleadingly. It was a foolish thing that bubbled up in his chest and crackled across his circuits: a desperate plea for Hank to fix this. To make it untrue. To somehow, magically, make it so that Connor hadn’t just lost another brother. To take away this repeating nightmare of finding his predecessors too late, of finding only their bodies, their parts, their bloodstained remains.

Hours ago, this last one had been alive. He had been here. He had maybe even been salvageable. If only they had gotten here sooner. If only they had investigated this house sooner. If only Connor had done something…anything…sooner…Maybe the RK800 could have been saved. Maybe this story could have a different ending, and he wouldn’t continue to be the only one of his line that had survived. He was tired of mourning brothers that he had never had a chance to know.

Hank absorbed that agonized stare, reflecting back some of his own, and he carefully touched Connor’s arm again.

“Connor—“ he started carefully.

There was a shift in the air that gave them both pause, and more purposeful movement came from the front of the house. Hank looked first and stiffened, and Connor watched him for a delaying moment before steeling himself and turning to look as well.

He recognized one of the technicians from the android coroner’s office, walking alongside a gurney that was being supported by two other technicians. There was a closed body bag lying on the gurney, and a solid mass was inside it, jostling ever so slightly as the technicians carried it over the rough terrain of the yard. Person was trailing after it.

The officers parted as the coroner led the gurney toward one of the ambulances, giving him a clear path with a wide berth. There was a thick tension mounting in the stillness, and though eyes were on the gurney, attention was on Connor.

How was he going to react? They would be wondering, ready to shift into their training if he fell apart like the loved ones of other victims that they had seen in other cases.

But the problem was…he wasn’t a loved one of the victim. They weren’t even ‘related’ in such human terms. He referred to the other RK800s as brothers because “predecessor” and “fellow prototype in his line” felt so cold and detached. He had never known the person in that body bag. He was a stranger. So his co-workers’ concern should not have been necessary.

But if all that was true, why did it hurt so…so goddamn much?

“C’n’r,” was the garbled, choked sound that came out of Person, as she broke away from the procession and staggered toward him.

Her face was white, but her hands and the front of her shirt were stained blue. Connor involuntarily held his arms out to steady her wobbly steps. Her wide eyes were locked on him and watery, and he hastily closed the distance between them, getting his hands on her arms. As soon as he made contact, Person grabbed at him, pulling him close into a bone crushing hug.

Connor staggered, putting his arms around her and looking over her head to Hank with wide eyes. Hank looked unsettled as he watched Person, then eyed Connor. Connor nodded to him, and Hank frowned, going over toward Chris, who was speaking to Gavin nearby.

“It’s okay,” Connor told Person mechanically. “I’ve got you.”

Person said nothing in response, just held him more tightly and shivered against him. He subtly turned so his shoulder blocked the other officers on the scene from seeing her, giving her some semblance of privacy as she broke down. At the same time, he heightened his auditory units, focusing his receptors toward Hank, Gavin, and Chris speaking in hushed tones several paces away.

_“—had whole biocomponents carved out of him,”_ Chris was saying. _“And RK800 parts are valuable, so the guy didn’t just leave them lying around. He just left him for dead down there. There was…Please believe me, sir, there was nothing that we could do.”_

_“I know,”_ Hank assured him. _“I appreciate you trying. Connor appreciates you trying.”_

_“God, it was…it was awful,”_ Chris went on. _“There was blood everywhere, and he…he was trying to speak, but—I don’t know how lucid he was…We just tried to keep him comfortable…He was scared, sir…”_

Connor grimaced, a swell of something sharp and throbbing moving through his primary processor as he tried to compartmentalize what he was feeling right now. To hear his brother’s final moments described…

_“Person stayed with him the whole time. She didn’t give up and…she helped him find some calm and some peace before it happened. At least, I think she did. I choose to believe she did,”_ Chris said. _“She sat with him until the coroner got here too. She, uh,”_ Chris’s voice thickened with emotion, _“we didn’t want him to be alone down there anymore.”_

Connor closed his eyes, his optical units burning as fresh grief and guilt poured over him. At the same time, gratitude warmed his chest, and he tightened his hold around his trembling friend. Person still wasn’t speaking, but she responded by squeezing him back, face firmly buried in his shoulder. He lowered his cheek to the top of her head, finding something solid in her to ground himself to.

“Thank you,” he murmured, just loud enough for her to hear.

_“Yeah,”_ Gavin chimed in, _“and she nearly pulled a gun on me when I got too close. Even when I was telling her that it wasn’t Connor.”_ He paused, then resumed in an uncharacteristically empathetic tone. _“Somebody take her home. She doesn’t need to be here. Neither does he.”_

Hank breathed loudly. _“I think you’re right. If you have things under control here, then I’ll take them both home. Or back to the station. Or just…somewhere that isn’t here.”_

_“Got it,”_ Gavin agreed.

_“Chris?”_ Hank asked.

_“No, I’d…I want to stay here, get the, uh, wheels of justice moving,”_ Chris replied. _“The sooner we—“_

Connor reset his auditory sensors, letting the surrounding white noise flood back in. He didn’t need to hear anymore. Sensing that they weren’t going to be alone for much longer, Connor rubbed a hand up and down Person’s back, silently encouraging her to find her way back to composure.

She nodded, reluctantly disengaging and taking a half step back. She wiped furiously at her eyes with the back of her wrists, her hands still too covered in blue.

“Connor—“ she abruptly started, then stopped.

Her eyes tried to rise to meet his but stopped at his collar. After a beat, she managed it, staring at him. She seemed to struggle for a moment, and he just stared back at her patiently.

She swallowed and then drew herself up. “I love you.”

Connor blinked at her, having not expected that. “I…”

“You’re my best friend,” she rushed on, “and I love you. I need…I needed—I need you to know that—“

Her face started to crumple again, and he again pulled her into a hug, tighter than before, more urgent.

“I love you too,” he assured her quickly. “You’re one of my favorite people in this world, Lisa…Thank you. Thank you for being here tonight, and…I’m—Thank you.”

His voice modulator seized slightly, and he cleared his throat to try and fix it. It didn’t correct itself, and he surrendered to the momentary muteness, swallowing against it and blinking back the blurring burn in his vision. Despite knowing that he was holding her up, he didn’t feel like the stronger person in this moment.

“…It hurts,” he wheezed out brokenly. “...I keep losing them, and I don’t know how to—“

He stopped himself, turning his face away from the other officers.

“I’ve got you,” Person promised.

“And I’ve got you both,” Hank quietly ducked into the moment, lighting a hand to Connor’s back. “C’mon, they don’t need us here. Let me take you both out of here.”

Connor looked at him gratefully, relinquishing his hold on Person and looking past her, to the coroner’s ambulance.

“W-Where are they taking him?” he asked hoarsely.

Hank winced and followed his stare. “There’s an android morgue near the Detroit Alpha Facility. The coroner’s name is Dwight Tyson. I know him. He’s a good man. He’ll be respectful and take care of him.”

Connor nodded jerkily, and Person straightened up again, finding her composure while Connor searched for his own.

“Lieutenant…” she greeted him, despite her watery eyes.

Hank put a hand on her shoulder, wiggling his thumb into her collar bone. “Hey. You’re good.” He took a steadying breath, looking from Person, to Connor, and to the general area. “Let’s go.”

Person nodded, tentatively brushing her hand against Connor’s wrist. He immediately grasped her hand, holding onto it as they turned and made their way back toward Hank’s Oldsmobile. Hank’s hand stayed on Connor’s shoulder supportively the entire time, until they were climbing into the car.

Then the car doors closed, and Connor had never felt such a silence as they pulled away from the scene. Person was in the backseat with him, close against his side, still shaky and occasionally hiccupping from the emotional toll. He clung to her in return, his processors overwhelmed and struggling to digest everything all at once. It left his thoughts feeling foggy and abstract.

In the rearview mirror, he watched the coroner’s ambulance pull away from the scene in the opposite direction, its sirens mute and its lights dark, driving toward the morgue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is the finale of this fic challenge, and be assured that we will end on a much lighter note.


	31. Reluctant Bedrest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following a car accident, Hank and Connor are back home, both sore and cranky, recovering and trying to keep their spirits up. Fortunately, they have some help, and it leads to some solid entertainment for Hank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for a lighthearted, soft ending to a semi-whumpy fic challenge. This one is also shamelessly shippy, so this one is for you, Connor/Julia shippers XD
> 
> This is the part three follow up to chapter 8 “Stoic” and chapter 18 “Panic Attacks.”

The instructions from both the doctors and the technicians were clear. After getting home from the car accident yesterday, Hank and Connor were to take it easy. No driving. No operating machinery. No heavy lifting. No strenuous exercise. No nothing. And they were on medical leave for the rest of the week.

And God, it was boring as Hell.

It hadn’t taken much effort to convince Connor to sleep in Hank’s bed with him last night. Neither wanted to be out of each other’s sight, and Connor was still in too much pain to suffer on the less comfortable couch. The next morning, predictably, had been almost worse, with Hank waking up to his joints and muscles all locked up and sore, his bruises coming in deep and tender, and his headache consuming the entire front of his skull with a throbbing that matched up with his heartbeat.

At least Hank had been ready for that. This was clearly Connor’s first rodeo with ‘waking up sore’ after an injury. Apparently his healing program, despite being top notch, couldn’t take care of everything in one rest cycle. It had left his friend stiff and biting back moans of pain anytime he attempted to move.

Like a couple of zombies, they had managed to shuffle into the living room. Connor had almost immediately crawled into the recliner, complaining that his entire torso and neck were so sore that lying down hurt. Hank, likewise, had flopped onto the couch…his entire torso and neck so sore that doing anything but lying down hurt.

And there they had remained all morning…which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Per doctor’s orders, that’s what they were supposed to be doing, right? But after several hours of just lying here and watching television, the fidgets were setting in. Fortunately, anytime things started to feel boring, the real entertainment would kick on. Hank had started internally calling it “The Connor and Julia Show.”

The ST300 had stopped by that morning to check on them in person, after apparently she had texted Connor and gotten a very groggy and pitiful response.

“Groggy and pitiful” had pretty much summed up Connor’s existence until Julia arrived, then he had suddenly been trying to sit up straighter, fiddling with the pajamas that he’d not bothered to change out of, and fixing his bedhead. Hank hadn’t bothered—this was his house, he was less than 24 hours post-car accident, and he’d been grumpy and comfy if he wanted, thank you very much. But it had been charming to watch his partner fidget still.

Julia didn’t seem to care either way, simply smiling and offering to help them with whatever they needed today. Hank could see that she was still rattled from yesterday as well, and he made no argument when she offered to take Sumo for a walk as a start.

That had been a while ago, and Hank was getting bored again.

Still lying on the couch, facing the kitchen, he flipped idly through television channels while Connor snored in the recliner. Connor was all wrapped up in a quilt like a perfect android burrito with just his head sticking out, lying back in the recliner at a 45 degree angle. His head was tilted back, his mouth hanging open in sleep, and snoring like a chainsaw.

Apparently running a healing program for eighteen hours straight really takes it out of a guy.

Hank smirked as he watched his friend, then heard the front door click open. Sumo’s familiar footfalls and panting barreled into the house, followed by Julia quietly shushing him as she closed the door behind herself. Hank smoothed his smirk, closing his eyes and preparing for another episode of his favorite show.

He cracked open one eye just enough to look through his lashes and see Julia walk behind the couch, returning Sumo’s leash to the hook on the wall. She watched the dog romp down the hall and back and then take a lap around the kitchen, still amped from his walk. He circled into the living room and made a line for Connor, eager to greet his favorite android.

“Tss, tss, tss,” Julia chirped, running interference to keep the dog from waking him up. She whispered, “No, Sumo, hey.”

Sumo immediately pivoted away from Connor, bouncing over to Hank on the couch. Julia made a mad grab for him, but she missed him. The dog shoved his big head onto Hank’s chest, and Hank chuckled, giving up the ruse of sleep and rubbing both hands on either side of Sumo’s head.

“Hey, mutt,” he greeted, voice still low and raspy from sleep.

Julia straightened up, looking apologetic. “Sorry.”

Hank waved her off. “S’fine. Looks like somebody had a good walk.”

“Yeah,” Julia grinned, making a show of rubbing her shoulder and rotating it. “He saw a few squirrels and nearly took my arm out of the socket.”

The mental image of the giant dog dragging an airborne Julia down the street made Hank laugh, which quickly turned to groans as the motion jostled his sore ribs.

Julia made a face at him, folding her arms and cocking her hip. “Hardy-har, I’m sure the—“

Sumo’s wildly wagging tail slapped the television remote off the table, sending it clattering to the floor. It was just enough noise to reach through sleep to rouse Connor. He snorted out of his normal snoring rhythm, and his yellow LED started to speed up a little as he wiggled himself awake. It took a few seconds, but he finally opened his eyes to see Hank, Sumo, and Julia all staring at him.

“Hi,” Julia cooed at him indulgently.

He stared at her for a sleepy beat, then closed his mouth and blinked. “Hey.”

Julia smirked, and her head swiveled to look at Hank. “Guess the train has reached the station.”

Hank cackled, then groaned again, rubbing his chest. Connor frowned.

“What?”

“You snore like a freight train, my good dude,” Julia teased.

Connor shifted, sitting up a little in the recliner. “I do not.”

Julia shook her head and walked into the kitchen, and Connor looked sourly to Hank. Hank, for his part, just grinned and lifted his phone, wiggling it at him.

“I recorded you doing it, son. Irrefutable evidence.”

Connor looked betrayed. “Delete that.”

“Never in a million years,” Hank cackled. “It’s too friggin’ adorable.”

“I am not adorable.”

“Awww,” Julia crooned from the kitchen. “Yes, you are, buttercup.”

Connor pouted and slouched in his burrito, only making Hank’s point all the more.

“So,” Julia went on. “I am not even going to attempt to cook anything, so what are we feeling for lunch? I can get drone delivery in twenty minutes.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Connor stated, pulling the recliner back upright and struggling his way out of his burrito. “You’ve done enough.”

Behind him, Julia raised her eyebrows, staring at the back of his head. “You want me to leave then?”

“No,” Connor replied too quickly, then flattened his expression and gingerly climbed out of the recliner. “I just don’t…want to burden you.”

“I don’t mind it,” Hank chimed in, wrestling Sumo away from licking his face.

“Thank you, Hank,” Julia chirped. “At least somebody appreciates me.”

“I…appreciate you,” Connor muttered sheepishly.

Julia gave him a narrow look, then winked to let him off the hook, looking back to Hank. “So? Sandwiches? Tacos? Pizza? What?”

“Tacos,” Hank swiftly said, pointing at her.

Connor looked at him, scandalized. “Hank.”

Hank grumbled at him, looking mournfully to Julia. “Fine. Salad.”

Julia lifted an eyebrow. “Taco salad?”

Connor turned his scandalized look to her, but Hank gave her a thumbs up.

“That’s why I love you, girl.”

Julia snickered, then to Connor, “What? It has lettuce in it!”

“Yeah!” Hank argued.

Connor, seeing he was outnumbered, just scoffed and limped his way down the hall to the bathroom, rubbing a hand along his torso where the compression bandaging was starting to bother him.

“Your silence says you are down for tacos too,” Julia called after him. “I hear Bert’s has them now.”

“…Fine,” came the resigned response.

Julia did a fist pump and grinned at Hank, initiating an interface call to both Bert’s and the local taco joint for both orders.

In the meantime, Hank began the arduous process of climbing up out of the couch himself. He made it upright, swinging his feet to the floor with a groan and sinking back into the cushions. A bottle of water and aspirin appeared on the coffee table in front of him, and he toasted Julia as he swallowed them.

She was answering the delivery drone at the door when Connor lumbered back down the hall, his LED cycling between blue and yellow.

“Moving awful ginger there,” Hank noted. “Everything healing like it should?”

Connor nodded, though his brows remained pinched as he stepped over to Hank. “Yes, but is this normal?”

He lifted his t-shirt up enough to expose his stomach, where the compression bandages had left indentations in his skin, just a few marks of irritated blue lines where his skin program had thinned under the pressure. Hank squinted a bit, reaching up a hand and gently poking a few of the spots.

“Yeah, that’ll go away in a little bit.”

“It itches,” Connor complained, scratching at a spot just below where his ribcage would be.

Julia turned around, and he hastily lowered his shirt again. He wasn’t quick enough, and Julia got a good eyeful of bare skin as she carried the delivery orders into the living room. Hank kept his expression blank as both androids’ faces tinted blue, and Connor pivoted to quickly start petting on Sumo. Julia carried the bags into the kitchen, sorting out the boxes as the smell of tacos filled the house.

“Everything okay?” she asked, carrying in the taco salad container and offering it to Hank.

“Oh, you are an angel,” Hank crooned, opening the box and breathing in the spicy aroma.

“Yep,” Connor chirped, scratching at his skin through the t-shirt. “My healing program said all internal repairs are complete. There was just an odd side effect that I wasn’t anticipating.”

“Oh, okay…Well, you want this?” she prompted, holding up the container from Bert’s.

Connor paused, then gave a shy nod, sitting himself back in the recliner with a wince. She handed him the container, and he took it, looking at her appreciatively.

“Thank you,” he told her genuinely.

She smiled warmly. “You’re welcome.”

Oh, this hour’s episode was juicy.

Hank used his fork to start mixing around the contents of his lunch. “Seriously? Right in front of my salad?”

They both looked at him quizzically.

“It’s a taco salad,” Connor argued.

“Still…” Hank glowered, then smirked, deciding to stoke the coals a little. “Hey, Jules, how come you never worry about me like that? I’m in pain too, y’know.”

Julia sputtered, eyes widening at him. At the same time, Connor’s scandalized expression made a comeback, aimed at him. Hank just raised his eyebrows, waiting on an answer.

Julia composed herself and then lowered her shoulders, lifting her chin. “Because Connor is prettier than you.”

Hank let out an offended squawk, and Connor’s face turned even bluer, hiding his face in his lunch. Not to be outdone, Hank picked up his phone, opening the video recording of Connor, kicked back in his chair, mouth gaping, snoring loudly.

“I come in second after this? This is what does it for you, Jules? What about this is pretty?”

“Stoppp,” Connor whined, as Julia cackled, despite her own blue cheeks.

Her response was to flash him her palm, where she had pulled up her own recording: Hank, draped across the couch, mouth hanging open, snoring even more obnoxiously than Connor.

Connor looked at her hand, then sat up, victoriously pointing at Hank. “Aha!”

His triumph was cut short with a sharp hiss, touching his sore side as he sank back into the cushions. Julia snickered, patting him on the head as she walked past.

“An ice pack to go with your lunch, sir?” she said in a funny accent.

Now that some of the flack had been sent Hank’s way instead of his own, Connor looked to be in better spirits, and he mimicked the accent back at her.

“That would be nice. Thank you.”

Hank grumbled, but it was all for show as he watched Connor more comfortably settle in for another round of doing absolutely nothing, while their battered bodies and bruised egos continued to heal. He glanced from Connor to Julia in the kitchen, at her giddy little grin as she put together a new ice pack for him.

Well, maybe it wasn’t a round of absolutely nothing…and Hank found himself looking forward to the next episode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something about Hank and Julia ganging up together on Connor is never not funny to me. The poor boi XD


End file.
